


Speaking In Static

by Carbonpixel



Series: The Semiotics of Direct Affection [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: AkuRoku - Freeform, AkuSai, Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Post-College, Aphobia, Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, KH Rogue Nebula, M/M, RokuSai, Sex Repulsion, Slow Build, akurokusai, amatonormativity, aromantic!Roxas, asexual!Saix, background Sora/Riku - Freeform, barista!Saix, could be considered a coffee shop AU but it's complicated, endgame axel/roxas/saix, endgame queerplatonic relationship, librarian!Roxas, millenials, retail!Axel, romance repulsion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22349737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbonpixel/pseuds/Carbonpixel
Summary: When Axel bemoans his latest failed romance before the Open Mic Night at the local coffee shop, Saix’s advice is clear: “Go scope out some new blond musicians to proposition.”Roxas, through no fault of his own, catches Axel’s eye. Axel, through several faults of his own, falls hard and fast. Saix, drawn into the middle from both sides, attempts to mitigate Axel’s emotions while wrestling with his own mixed feelings.Eventually, they’ll have to master the art of speaking through the static.
Relationships: Axel/Roxas, Axel/Roxas/Saix, Axel/Saïx (Kingdom Hearts), Roxas & Saix (Kingdom Hearts), Roxas & Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: The Semiotics of Direct Affection [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608799
Comments: 117
Kudos: 38





	1. Like Riding a Bike

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is: my stubborn, weird, and wonderful passion project, nearly a year in the making. This fic was initially written for a defunct fandom event, but was reworked for the Kingdom Hearts Rogue Nebula over the past few months. What started as a fueled-by-spite project became the first part of a love story with aro and ace characters at its center and entirely too many callbacks to my favorite parts of my early fandom experience. I won't apologize for that last part, but I _am_ willing to take responsibility for any fandom flashbacks I might cause.
> 
> Huge thank-yous to [greeneggs101,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greeneggs101/pseuds/greeneggs101) who stepped up to beta-read in my hour of need, and [Besin,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Besin/pseuds/Besin) whose support and advice has been immeasurable throughout this entire process. This fic wouldn't exist in its current form without their help.

Axel frowned as he stared at his phone screen, opening and closing the messaging app for the seventh time in a row. No new messages, just like the last time he checked. “He still hasn’t texted me back.” 

Amid the frantic splattering noises erupting from the espresso machine, Axel could hear Saïx huff out loud, the sound cutting straight into his ear from behind the counter. “How long has it been?”

Axel tossed his phone onto the counter, smacking his hand against the laminate surface on the downswing. The phone landed between Saïx’s left arm and the cash register. “Two weeks,” he half-growled, gritting his teeth. “Two god-damned weeks. Honestly, I can’t with this guy. It’s insulting, is what it is.”

Unperturbed, Saïx nudged Axel’s phone back to him, pushing it against the hand splayed across the counter. He glanced at the cash register, then at the crowd of people gathering in the front corner of the coffee shop. “Looks like it’s showtime,” he said, jutting his chin in the direction of the crowd. “Go scope out some new blond musicians to proposition. I have to get back to work.”

Axel pocketed his phone and sneered in Saïx’s direction. “Right, because those lattes don’t make themselves.”

“As a matter of fact,” Saïx said, pressing a button on the cash register without looking away from Axel, “they don’t.”

“Always so serious,” Axel teased, his mood lifting at the familiar comeback. “You should lighten up.”

“You should cultivate better taste in men.”

Axel stuck out his tongue as Saïx turned away to address the short line that had formed during their conversation. Out of the corner of his eye, Axel saw Saïx seamlessly transition from his usual flat affect into his genial customer-service persona, his blank resting face shifting into something that resembled a friendly stranger with a vested interest in other people’s drink orders. Axel smirked as he listened to Saïx take orders and exchange social niceties with practiced scripts—scripts that he had helped Saïx practice, no less. No matter how fake Saïx sounded, customers responded warmly to him. _That_ was the power of the retail persona.

Axel made his way toward the small crowd of people situated around a microphone stand and a lone stool at the front of the shop, tended by a haggard-looking college student with long side-swept bangs and a clipboard. The college student scribbled at the paper on the clipboard as people approached him, their guitars, ukuleles, and journals in tow.

At five minutes to the hour, the college student waved away the stragglers and took the microphone off the stand. He cleared his throat before speaking. “Hello,” he deadpanned, the psychological wear and tear of final exams evident in his voice. “Thank you for coming to our Open Mic Night. My name is Zexion. I will be your master of ceremonies for this evening, as it appears that my compatriot has… ’left the building,’ as it were.” Zexion closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. “Let’s get this over with.”

Axel settled into one of the worn upholstered chairs near the back of the makeshift stage area. Over the next hour, he watched as people from the crowd walked up to the microphone one by one, performing half-realized acoustic covers of pop songs, reading lackluster poetry, and, in the case of one bespectacled college freshman, screaming the captions of newspaper photos over a trap beat played on a tablet. He rested his head against the back of his chair as the performances continued, the notion of leaving early flickering around in his idle thoughts but falling short of convincing his conscious mind to move. Walking home alone was more trouble than sitting through Open Mic Night while waiting for Saïx’s shift to end.

Axel let his head drop to one shoulder as Zexion ushered another ukulele-wielding undergrad off the stage and took the microphone for himself. “Thank you for that lovely rendition of… whatever that was,” he said, the skin under his eyes dark and sunken enough to resemble hollowed-out sockets. “We have one more performer for tonight. Please welcome Roxas to the stage.”

A short man with flyaway blond hair and a guitar strapped across his shoulders loped onto the stage. Axel shifted forward in his seat as Roxas set himself on the stool and adjusted the height of the mic stand, positioning the microphone directly in front of his face. Roxas smiled at the thinned crowd of onlookers as he plucked at the strings of his guitar, turning the knobs at the head of the guitar when necessary. “This is kind of a cliché thing to do,” he said, laughing, “but I promised myself I would do it at least once in my life.”

Roxas strummed an introductory chord and launched into a wholly unimpressive rendering of an unremarkable They Might Be Giants song, one that Axel had definitely heard on a compilation album at some point but remembered nothing about, save for its artist. As if he was unaware of his own musical shortcomings, Roxas sang with abandon, swaying slightly on the stool in time with the beat of the song and dutifully accenting the backbeats of his guitar strum.

Axel chuckled under his breath, resting a loosely-balled fist against one cheek. He caught himself grinning as Roxas’s performance ended to peppered applause throughout the coffee shop, and silently cursed Saïx for being perceptive.

He waited for part of the crowd to disperse before moving toward the stage, where Roxas crouched to put his guitar away in its case. Axel stood two paces away until Roxas straightened, slung his guitar case over one shoulder, and turned to see Axel lingering behind him. “Oh! Jeez, I didn’t see you there,” Roxas said, jolting backward.

Axel responded with a nonchalant waving gesture. “No worries! Didn’t mean to scare you. I just came over to compliment your song choice for tonight, it really set you apart. I think I may have been the only one here who recognized it.” He held out his hand. “Name’s Axel, by the way.”

Roxas took Axel’s hand and shook it deliberately, his grip tightening as his shoulders visibly tensed. “Thanks, Axel. I’m Roxas.” After a few seconds, Roxas’s palm sprung open as though it had been stung, retreating into his jeans’ front pocket as Roxas avoided Axel’s eyes. “The more obscure the song, the fewer people who will notice when you fuck up onstage.” 

Axel crossed his arms and shrugged, smirking broadly. “But all the more embarrassing when someone notices, right? Luckily, I didn’t notice anything.” 

“You didn’t? You must not be one for paying attention.” Roxas crossed his own arms and countered Axel’s smirk.

Fluttering somethings came to life in Axel’s chest under the force of Roxas’s full attention, all business and fully magnetic. “The world’s a stage, isn’t it?” He motioned toward the microphone stand and stool as a case in point. “Performance is everything, even when dealing with the Inner Self, and especially when making first impressions.”

Roxas bobbed his head in a half-nodding gesture, his expression losing some of its edge. “I guess. I doubt anyone’s lying about liking They Might Be Giants to make themselves look better, though.”

“Too true. That’s why I’m bringing it up. For authenticity, you know. Just to keep myself honest.” Axel winced as he noticed the flaw in his logic, too late to correct it.

Roxas’s stare sharpened, zeroing in on Axel. “Uh-huh.” 

Axel leaned backward and sighed. He ran one hand through his hair, careful not to split any of the spikes with his fingers. “Wow, I really don’t think I’m representing myself well here.”

Roxas relaxed, sitting back on his heels and releasing the daggers in his eyes. “You had me at the first part. The meta about the perpetual performance of the Self is where you lost me.” He hiked his guitar strap higher onto his shoulder. “Speaking of which, it’s about time I got lost, in the other metaphorical sense. You heading out?” 

“Actually, I’m waiting for a friend,” Axel replied, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at Saïx’s usual post behind the counter. “I have a man on the inside.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yeah. He’s not half-bad at his job, either.” Confidence returning, Axel braced one hand against his hip. “For the nominal fee of a phone call, I could get you in good with him. All the best Open Mic performers have a guy on the inside, you know.”

Roxas cocked his head to the side for a moment, then held out his free hand palm-up. “Sure, why not. Make it a text, though.” 

Axel placed his phone in Roxas’s outstretched hand, using the depths of his vocal range to smooth over the fluttering in his chest. “You drive quite the hard bargain, Roxas.”

“Oh, you know,” Roxas said, tapping his information into Axel’s phone, “when the other guy offers minor local fame, you gotta play hard to get.” He gave a final press on the glass screen and handed the phone back to Axel. 

A bolt of electricity shot down Axel’s arm when their fingertips brushed, shifting the meter of his heartbeat as it passed through his body. “I—um, thanks. I’ll text you.”

Roxas glanced at his feet before turning toward the door. “Don’t mention it. See you later, Axel.” In seconds, Roxas was out the door and bounding down the sidewalk, his guitar jostling on his back.

Axel stood motionless for the next few seconds, entranced by the cadence of Roxas’s gait as seen through the large windows comprising the coffee shop’s front wall. His reverie broke when a hand clamped onto his shoulder.

“Ready to go?” Saïx asked, coming up behind him. He carried his work apron slung over one arm, his keys dangling from his index finger. “Or are you still taking in the view?”

Axel blinked back to composure. “Saïx, _please._ I’m a professional.”

“A professional disaster, maybe. Come on,” he said, giving Axel’s shoulder a gentle shove. “The night is young for once. Let’s get home before it gets too old.”

Axel shook his shoulders in a display of mock irritation. “Fine, old man. But _I’m_ picking the movie tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates will be on Mondays and Thursdays throughout the Rogue Nebula event, with a few days off here and there. Stay tuned!


	2. A Series of Poor Decisions

Roxas shifted on the cushion of the armless Windsor chair, tucking in his legs to sit cross-legged at Sora’s weathered, hand-me-down dinner table. His eye was immediately drawn to the off-white lace tablecloth draped over the table, a new and uncharacteristically delicate addition to the dining room décor since Roxas’s last visit. “Where did you guys find this?” he marveled, tugging at the intricate lace with his thumb and forefinger. “It’s so fancy.”

Sora sauntered into the dining room from the adjacent kitchen, still wearing the star-patterned apron that Roxas had given him two birthdays ago tied at his waist. He placed a large potholder in the center of the table before setting down the large serving dish he carried. “Riku found it in a thrift store not too long ago. It’s nice, right? He said that it would ‘class up our place’ a bit.” Sora added air quotes as he mimicked Riku’s voice, deeper than his own. “Like we need class, am I right?”

“It’s a lot better than the plastic folding table I’m currently working with, at any rate,” Roxas said, smoothing the tablecloth back into place.

Sora returned to the dining room with two sets of metal cutlery and two large white plates. “Hey, the plastic table was probably much easier to move than this oak monstrosity would be.” He knocked on the table for emphasis, the sound of his wedding ring hitting the wood resonating through the tablecloth. “How’s the move going, anyway?”

Roxas accepted the plate-and-cutlery set Sora offered from across the table, the metal clinking against the ceramic. “It’s going, I guess. Almost everything is out of boxes and onto shelves. I just need to organize and get some decent furniture.”

“Don’t want to live that frugal grad student life forever?” Sora asked, spooning a serving of macaroni and cheese onto his plate.“I thought you liked being a student.”

“No one really _likes_ being a student. It’s just easier to be a student than a fully-functioning adult after graduation.” Roxas scooped some of the pasta onto his own plate. “At least, it is until you realize the loan payments will start coming as soon as you’re finished.”

Sora let out a barking laugh, giving Roxas a full view of half-chewed macaroni. “That’s right! You’re totally screwed, man!”

“Yeah, I’m trying not to think about it.” Worried fingernails began picking at the eyelets in the lace tablecloth, and Roxas closed his fist to restrain them. “Actually, I’ve kind of been focusing on the social side of things.”

A noise, something between a squeak and a squawk, escaped from Sora’s gaping mouth. “You? Social? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Roxas took a deep breath through his nose, releasing his fist to lay flat on the table. “You know what I mean.”

“How’s that going for you, then? Have you figured out how to answer the question ‘How are you?’ without choking on your own awkwardness?” Sora waggled his fork at Roxas from across the table, a brightness in his demeanor softening the blow. 

“Hey, I’ll have you know that I was asked for my number last night,” Roxas said, the noodles on his plate arranged into messy piles as he fought to avoid Sora’s gaze. “I gave it to him, too.”

Sora’s expression dimmed, growing stern. “Wait, why?”

Roxas stared at his plate as he moved his food around. “I don’t know. I got the feeling that he wouldn’t leave me alone unless I gave it to him. He wasn’t… _overwhelmingly_ persistent, but like…”

“What are you going to do if he tries to set something up?” Lines creased between Sora’s brows.“You’re not going to ghost him, are you?”

“It’s not really your concern what I do,” Roxas replied flatly. Exhaling through his teeth, he returned his attention to rearranging the food on his plate. “Honestly, I don’t expect him to follow up at all. I laid it on pretty thick while we were talking.”

Sora pointed at Roxas with his fork, making small jabbing gestures in Roxas’s direction. “Roxas, what you call ‘laying it on thick’ is what most people call ‘regular flirting.’ Are you _sure_ you didn’t send the wrong message?”

Roxas returned fire with his own fork-stabbing gestures, one per syllable. “There. Was. No. Message.” 

On the last syllable, Roxas’s phone sprung to life, rumbling slightly against the table. A ‘New Message’ notification lit up its lock screen.

Sora’s eyes flicked to the phone. “You gonna get that? It might be important. From someone who got a _message_ last night.”

“I’m going to send _you_ a pretty clear message if you don’t drop your high-and-mighty act,” Roxas grumbled, unlocking his phone and checking his text messages. His inbox boasted one unread message from a phone number he did not recognize: _Hey, it’s Axel from the coffee shop yesterday. Are you—_

Roxas squeezed his eyes shut and groaned, a low siren warbling down his throat. “I think you won this one, Sora. Here, you read it,” he said, holding his phone out across the table. “Assess the damage for me.”

“Alright, let’s see,” Sora said, taking the phone and clicking his tongue as he swiped along its screen. He let out a hum as he finished reading the text. “He wants to meet up with you this weekend. He says he’s ‘thinking of checking out the new arcade downtown,’ whatever that means.” Sora dropped the phone near the edge of Roxas’s plate and sat back in his chair with a smug grin. “Let the record show that I was right. Suck on _that._ ” 

“Fine. Whatever.” He pushed his plate toward the center of the table, leaving several piles of uneaten macaroni untouched. He covered his face with his hands to hide the desperation forming just under the surface. “Sora, why is my life like this? What did I do to deserve this?”

Sora speared the final few macaroni noodles left on his plate. “Well, most recently, you gave someone your number when you knew you wouldn’t want to see them again.”

“I did, didn’t I? God, I am the _worst._ ” Roxas’s head thumped onto the table, his arms circling his scalp like protective vultures. “Is it bad that I kind of want to go?” he asked, voice muffled. 

“Why, though?” Sora reached for Roxas’s plate as he stood and began stacking dishes, the silverware sandwiched between the ceramics. “It’s not going to end well. We both know you don’t have the best luck with this kind of thing.”

Roxas peeked over his arms. “The arcade sounds fun. I haven’t been there yet.”

“You’d be playing with fire,” Sora said, turning on his heels and walking to the kitchen. 

“But what if it worked out?” Roxas sat upright, his head resting in the palm of one hand. “Not in the romantic sense, obviously, but… what if we end up really getting along? It could be fun.”

Sora sighed in the kitchen, loudly enough for Roxas to hear in the dining room, as he placed the dishes in the sink. “You know how I feel about stuff like this,” he called out. “I don’t really want to have this conversation with you again.”

* * *

Upon arriving home, Roxas threw himself at his couch, landing face-down with a muffled grunt. One arm fell over the side, swinging slightly as it dangled and lightly grazed the carpet. He managed to take two choppy breaths before his phone buzzed in his pocket, signaling the arrival of another text. Roxas reluctantly shifted to retrieve his phone and check the new message: _I know it’s kind of short notice, haha—_

He buried his face in the couch cushions. Axel again, with more date ideas. _If you’re not sold on the arcade, we could do something else, like a movie or—_

Roxas rolled onto his back, draping one arm over his eyes and placing his phone on his breastbone. This was exactly what Sora had been talking about. Miscommunications, both in progress and waiting to happen.

His phone rumbled again. Roxas rubbed at his eyes, the notion of reading more misguided text messages and explaining himself to a complete stranger siphoning the little stamina remaining in his physical body. He spent the remainder of his waking energy composing a reply in his mind: _hey axel, let me check my schedule—_

His phone buzzed a third time, breaking his concentration. Roxas checked his messages again to find that both new text messages consisted of single question marks. He replied with his own text: _you seem to be a firm believer of the double-text._

Axel responded instantly: _What can I say? I’m persistent._ Winking emoji. _What do you say?_

_i’m just wondering why one would even entertain the idea of seeing a movie when an arcade is also an option._ Heat rose to Roxas’s cheeks as he hit ‘send.’ Would this be considered flirting? He did not intend to flirt.

Axel’s response: S _o you’re an arcade guy?_

Roxas’s thumbs typed out a reply, to the chagrin of his better judgment. _i wouldn’t know, i haven’t been to the arcade._

_Want to go with me?_ Joystick emoji, game controller emoji.

His better judgment, wresting control from whatever unseen power compelled him to keep the conversation going, composed a carefully-worded response. _that depends. can you handle the truth?_

_Try me, blondie._ Tongue-out emoji.

As he noticed the pronounced pounding in his temples, Roxas resigned himself to facing the consequences of his actions. _it'll have to wait until this weekend. when and where again?_

Axel sent the address of the arcade with a brief note: _Saturday at 9? Bring your ID_

_okay, sure. see you then._ Roxas released his phone onto the floor and crumpled into himself on the couch. He bit his lip in an effort to stave off the growing sense of unease gnawing at his stomach, and he scrunched his face as tears pricked at his eyes. The difficult discussions never got easier; only more complicated, and more painful to anticipate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the idea of Sora hosting dinner parties (foreshadowing). Also, I bet that lace tablecloth is very tasteful.


	3. Maybe, Definitely a Date

Axel arrived at the arcade fifteen minutes early, all manner of winged insects warring with each other in his stomach. He scanned the front of the building for signs of Roxas but only saw the arcade’s somber, concrete storefront, dominated by glass-block windows and a strobing ‘open’ sign placed next to the metal front door. Axel settled against the building’s outer wall and shoved his hands into his pockets, fighting the urge to check his phone as small groups of people passed by on the sidewalk. This date was important; distraction was not an option.

Axel caught sight of Roxas as he approached from a nearby side street, head down and feet scuffing at the pavement. He took note of Roxas’s outfit in the incandescent street light: dark jeans, a wide-striped sweater, and relatively-clean Chuck Taylors. Axel beamed inwardly—not too formal, not too casual. Proof that the stars were aligning.

Axel pushed himself off the wall to meet Roxas at the door. “Glad you could make it,” he said, grinning despite his best efforts to remain aloof. “For a second, I was worried you’d be late.”

Roxas glanced once more at the ground, then at Axel. “Thanks; I try. Is this the place?”

Roxas’s open stare, highlighted and shadowed by overhead streetlights, sent the insects in Axel’s stomach into overdrive. “Is it not what you were expecting?” Axel asked.

“It’s just kind of…” Roxas’s voice trailed off as he waved at the storefront, his open stare narrowing at the opaque windows.

Axel tamped back the impulse to defend his choice of venue loudly and wildly with a low, controlled chuckle. Now was _not_ the time to become combative. “Hey, don’t judge a covered book. Come on, I’ll show you around,” he said, opening the door and holding it open for Roxas. “After you, of course.”

Once inside, Axel’s eyes adjusted to the darkened arcade as patches of bright lights blinking in and out of his line of sight. The arcade floor, cramped with game cabinets and token machines, buzzed with the presence of its weekend crowd. Even the bar area, which usually stayed vacant until the partying crowd arrived closer to midnight, saw all of its seats filled. After sliding two folded ten-dollar bills to the doorman for the arcade’s cover charge, Axel leaned over to Roxas, who stood several paces away from the door. “It’s pretty busy tonight. Can you handle crowds?”

The set of Roxas’s furrowed brow became more pronounced in the low light. “What?” he asked, almost screaming over the cacophony of arcade music and sound effects.

Axel tapped Roxas on his arm, directing him out of the entrance area. “Never mind. Let’s go.”

He led Roxas through the arcade, serpentining through the disorganized aisles of game cabinets and clustered patrons to reach the bar area in the back of the game floor. “You brought your ID, right? This place is a lot more interesting after knocking a few back.”

Roxas turned to the bar, where a line of arcade-goers sat with mixed drinks and filled shot glasses. “Knock a few _what_ back, exactly?”

“Whatever you want,” Axel replied, snatching a laminated drink menu from the bar and holding it out to Roxas. “I have a couple of go-to drinks on here if you need suggestions.” 

Roxas accepted the menu and held it at arm’s length, impassive as he scanned through the options. Axel felt the insects in his stomach join forces to attempt a grand escape when he noticed Roxas biting his lip.

Roxas returned the menu to the bar and gave Axel a dry look. “Do you mind if I don’t order anything tonight? I’m not really a drinker,” he said, stepping away from the bar.

“Oh yeah, for sure! I mean—of course not! Whatever makes you comfortable.” Axel’s heart skipped a beat, his hands palm-out in front of him and his senses frantically searching the room for a quick segue. “We should definitely get to playing some games then, eh? This place is all free to play after entry.”

“How you do feel about air hockey?” Roxas pointed behind Axel, to an air hockey table sequestered in a corner of the arcade. The gathering crowds had not yet overtaken the space around it.

“That’ll work!” Axel clapped his hands together, more excitedly than he had initially intended, and made a beeline for the air hockey table. By the time Roxas caught up to him, he had already taken out the strikers from their storage nooks in the sides of the table, turned on the air cushion machinery, and retrieved a large red puck from one of the puck return slots. Axel held the puck up to his face, flashing a wide grin in Roxas’s direction. “Ready to play?”

Roxas picked up one of the strikers and took a position at the opposite end of the table. “Sure, why not? Let’s play.”

Axel followed suit and placed the puck on the tabletop, taking a shot before Roxas had fully prepared an air hockey stance at his post. The puck streaked directly into Roxas’s goal, and he startled as the table sounded a victory ‘ping’ for Axel’s scored point. “Ha! Look alive over there!” Axel taunted. The thrill of first blood distracted him from his nerves and let him savor the small victory.

Roxas flung the puck back onto the table. “You want to play like that? Fine. We can play like that.” He smacked the puck with his striker, sending it straight into Axel’s goal. The table pinged at a different pitch to denote Roxas’s point scored. “Your move.”

“Yeah? Al _right_ then.” Axel reset the puck and returned the volley, teeth bared and ambition flaring.

Between Axel’s offense and Roxas’s resolve, the puck sailed back and forth between them, just long enough for the table’s air cushion mechanism to turn off and the automatic scoreboard to officially declare the game a draw. 

Axel scoffed as the puck landed on the plastic tabletop, sans air current to keep it afloat. “Ugh, what? Lame. Best two out of three?” He pressed some of the buttons on the side of the table with quick alternating fingers, attempting to restart the game.

“Wait. Is that what I think it is? _”_

Axel looked up to see Roxas ogling at an arcade machine in the far corner, tipping sideways for a better sightline. Abandoning his striker on the table, Roxas barreled toward the machine, his shoulder brushing Axel’s upper arm in his eagerness. Axel fought to keep the blood rushing to his cheeks from dyeing his skin to match his hair while he stowed away the air hockey strikers and puck.

When he reached the back corner of the arcade, Axel found Roxas staring at the paneled dance platforms jutting out from the game cabinet nestled in a forgotten corner of the arcade, its colored lights casting highlights and shadows on Roxas’s agog face. “It _is_ what I think it is,” he said, almost breathless.

Axel’s blush receded as he connected the dots. “Really, Roxas? A dance game? What year is it?”

“You don’t understand. I _love_ this game.” Roxas gripped the safety bar arcing behind one of the platforms as he turned to face Axel, his pupils dilated enough to obscure the blue of his irises. “I _have_ to play it.”

Before Axel could protest, Roxas leapt onto the Player 1 dance platform and fiddled with the buttons on the console, starting the game and shuffling through song options. He settled on a high-pitched, upbeat number, pressed the ‘select’ button, and stepped into the center of the platform.

Roxas peered over his shoulder at Axel as the on-screen countdown blazed in its neon glory. “You in or what?”

Axel hesitated, distaste tingeing his immediate impulse to meet the challenge. “Honestly? Do I have to?” 

“I mean, you don’t have to. It’s cool if you’re scared or whatever.” Roxas placed his hands on the safety bar behind the platform. “I’m not here to judge, anyway.”

“I know that’s a lie, Roxas,” Axel snapped, stomping onto the Player 2 dance platform and pressing a confirmation button on the cabinet just before the countdown ended. “Let the record show that I’m doing this to defend my own honor, not because I think this is a worthwhile use of time.”

The display blanked before a brightly-colored background scene engulfed the screen, complete with polygonal dancing figures below arrow outlines placed across the top of the display. “So chivalrous. Such a gentleman,” Roxas replied dryly, eyes trained at the bottom of the screen for the first scrolling arrow.

The first arrow slid into its outline at the top of the screen, and both Roxas and Axel stepped on the corresponding panel of their platforms in time with the music. “I’ll have you know,” Axel said, tramping through the next few arrows, “that chivalry is one of my many redeeming qualities.”

“Yeah? Says who?” Roxas double-tapped one of the panels before jumping to press two panels at once. “So far, I’ve only seen you cheat at air hockey and suck at Dance Dance Revolution.”

“So far, I’ve only seen you refuse a free drink and get excited over a fad game from over a decade ago.”

The arrows on the screen multiplied for a final blitz, with Roxas’s limbs flailing to accommodate them. “You know what? That’s fair.”

“Damn straight,” Axel said, finishing the combo with a heavy ‘thud’ on the final panel.

The music faded as the final scores for both players popped onscreen, the stats for each listed in separate columns. While Roxas had earned a higher overall score, Axel had managed a longer hit combo streak. “How about that? Looks like I don’t suck at Dance Dance Revolution after all. The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.” Axel winked at Roxas, the faint glistening of sweat on Roxas’s forehead and neck drawing his eye. “Want to go again?”

Roxas wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and ruffled through his bangs, cowlicks piecing apart in damp clumps. “No, I’m good. I think I got that out of my system.” He stepped off the dance platform, his arms and back already poised in an arched half-stretch. “Unless you really wanted to.”

Axel hopped onto the floor next to Roxas and mirrored the stretch. “I think I’m ready for a drink. Jumping around on big arrow buttons makes a guy pretty thirsty.”

Roxas’s arms extended over his head as he twisted at the waist, the action accompanied only by slight murmurs from the back of Roxas’s throat. 

“You sure you don’t want anything?” Axel asked. “They have non-alcoholic drinks too.”

Roxas, still twisted away from Axel, centered himself in the direction of the ‘Exit’ sign above the arcade’s entrance. “No, in that case, I should be going. It’s probably late.”

Axel resisted the urge to pout, steeling himself into a scowl instead. “What? No, it’s not. We just got here.”

Roxas shook his head. “It’s past my bedtime.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Axel saw Roxas’s ribs expand in a conspicuous breath from behind, the sound of the breath masked by the ambiance of arcade game cabinets. “Okay, that’s a bad excuse,” Roxas admitted, “but I really should be going. We can text later.”

“Wait, hold on! Are you sure?” Axel’s voice rose to a shout as Roxas began to walk toward the arcade’s exit. “The night is still pretty young.”

Roxas stopped, looking over his shoulder without making eye contact. “Gotta get home before it gets too old, you know?” He raised one hand in a backwards wave as he headed for the door. “See you later, Axel.”

Axel watched, paralyzed, as Roxas left the building, the dance game’s treble-heavy music nagging at his eardrums in the background. He stood for a minute, motionless except for one hand running through the spikes in his hair, then set off through a thickened Saturday night crowd to reach the bar area. A drink was in order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Closing thoughts: free-play barcades are fun IRL, but are even _more_ fun if they have Dance Dance Revolution machines. Bonus points if they have more than one version of the game. (I'm partial to DDR Extreme 2, myself.)


	4. The Aftermath I

Roxas slammed his car door shut with a short grunt. His hands shook as he reached for the steering wheel, his lungs running ragged to match. He steadied himself with a long, jagged breath before turning the key in the ignition and pulling down the road, away from the arcade.

Once the arcade was long past the scope of his rearview mirror, Roxas snatched his phone from its perch on the passenger seat and called the first person on his speed-dial. He turned on the speakerphone and slid it onto the sticky pad on the dashboard as the person on the other line picked up. “Sora, I think I did a bad thing,” he said, his voice wavering.

Muffled yawning sounds came out of the speaker. “…Roxas? Do you know what time it is? I was just about to head to bed.”

“A bad thing, Sora.” Panic rose to Roxas’s face, searing at the skin of his neck on its way up.

“What bad thing?” Sora mumbled into the line, imminent sleep sneaking into his enunciation. 

Roxas took another deep breath, less jagged than the first. “I went on the date.”

“Okay?”

“And it was super weird. He asked if I wanted a drink and I said no and then there was air hockey but neither of us won—”

“Rox—”

“And then I saw the stupid DDR machine in the back corner and _of course_ I go over to it and start the game without thinking, and then he’s like, ‘Um, I don’t want to?’ but I kind of make him, and then—”

“Roxas—”

“—and then I say, ‘Hey, sorry, got to go, it’s past my bedtime,’ and I practically _run_ out of there like some kind of idiot and—”

“ _Roxas._ ”

Roxas stopped, suddenly aware of his jackhammering heartbeat. He slowed to a stop as he approached a red light. “Yeah?”

“Are you breathing?” Sora sounded more awake now, light footfalls accenting his question on the line. Roxas assumed that Sora was moving from the living room to the bedroom, to avoid bothering a cranky, late-night Riku with Roxas’s exploits. “Like, functionally breathing?”

The car crept forward as the traffic light turned green and Roxas released the brake. “I think so. I haven’t asphyxiated yet.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

“Fine. Yes, I’m breathing.” Roxas blew into the phone speaker, sharply and deliberately, to demonstrate. 

A small snort echoed from Sora’s end of the line. “Good. Next question. What _actually_ happened?”

Roxas recounted the experience of the arcade date again, at a slower pace and with greater detail. When he finished, he placed his phone in his lap, returning both hands to the steering wheel and his attention to the road. “Am I a bad person? I kind of feel like a bad person.”

“You’re not a bad person, Roxas. Stupid? Occasionally. Overall bad? No.”

Roxas eased around a corner and into the parking lot of his apartment complex, a network of two-story buildings arranged along winding self-contained streets. “It’s a serious question.”

Sora paused, several seconds of muted feedback adding to the ambient noise. “I don’t think going on one bad date makes you a bad person.”

“Oh? Since when?” Roxas pulled into a parking spot several paces from his apartment’s front door. “I seem to recall you were against the entire idea of me going on any kind of date at all.”

“I mean, I still don’t think dating’s a good idea for you, but I can’t tell you what to do with your life. I _can_ say that trying something, not liking it, and bailing isn’t a huge moral failing.” A pause on the line, cut short by a suppressed giggle. “Your way of handling it could have been better, though.”

“I _know._ I suck.” Roxas rested his forehead on the steering wheel, his nervous energy slipping out of his body and into the streetlight-illuminated night. He checked the time on his phone’s display. “Think it’s too late to send an apology text?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“But—”

“Roxas.” Sora’s voice dropped into its lowest authoritarian register. “Continuing to talk to this person is going to send him the wrong message, and I _know_ you don’t want that. I hereby forbid you from contacting this Axel character again, for your own sake.”

Roxas made a balking noise a few inches from the phone speaker. “My younger cousin is not in a position to forbid me from doing anything.”

“Yeah, well, I’m doing it anyway.” The hour caught in Sora’s yawning voice. “Goodnight, Roxas. Go to bed. No more texting strangers.”

“Are you familiar with the concept of reverse psychology?”

“ _Goodnight, Roxas.”_ The call ended, a red phone icon replacing Sora’s picture on the screen.

Roxas stared at his phone’s home screen, apps arranged in orderly rows under a digital clock readout. He tapped the texting app at the bottom of the screen, selected the conversation with Axel, and scrolled through the message history. Sora was right, Roxas realized, as he reread the texts. He was absolutely playing with fire.

In a fit of self-destruction, he resolved himself to burn.

* * *

Axel returned to the apartment to find Saïx sprawled across the living room couch, pajama-clad with an inches-thick book open across his lap. The only source of substantial light in the room came from the floor lamp positioned at the far edge of the couch, and the only source of substantial background noise came from the refrigerator humming in the kitchen. “Honey, I’m home,” he cooed, dropping his keys in a bowl resting on a shelf by the front door.

“You’re home early.” Saïx flipped a page, keeping his focus on the book.

Axel snuck around the half-wall separating the living room and kitchen to grab an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter before joining Saïx on the couch, flopping onto the cushions with his entire weight. “It was weird, man.”

“Oh?” Saïx turned another page, then crossed his legs under himself. “Weird how?”

Axel took a bite of the apple. “I don’t even know. It started off okay, and then we tied at air hockey, and—”

“How does one ‘tie’ at air hockey?” Though Saïx’s focus appeared to remain on the page, the inflection in his voice suggested divided attention.

“Not important.” Axel waved the apple in Saïx’s direction, the open bite in its flesh swinging dangerously close to the more reckless strands of Saïx’s long hair. “Anyway, we tied at air hockey and _then_ he saw the DDR machine in the back and I swear, Saïx, he was happier to see that game than he was to see me or anything else tonight, and—”

“Doesn’t the game go until someone wins? How do you tie at it?”

Axel clapped a hand onto Saïx’s knee, the force pitching Saïx to the side. “Saïx. _Focus._ He sees this DDR machine and he, like, sprints to it, and then starts the game without asking and as the countdown’s going he’s like, ‘are you going to play or what?,’ and at that point I _have_ to play because I’ll look like a jerk if I sit out—”

“And you actually did it? Wow, that’s big for you. I’m so proud.” The edges of Saïx’s mouth wrinkled slightly, a gesture Axel recognized as the closest thing to smiling that Saïx allowed himself under normal circumstances.

Axel returned the favor, mimicking Saïx’s expression with exaggerated features. “As I was _saying,_ I have to play at this point, so we finish the round. Then, he has the nerve to say it’s his ‘bedtime’ and leaves,” he said, with air quotes placed around the offending excuse.

“Sounds like a wild night.” Saïx returned to his book, drawing a finger down the page to find his last stopping place.

“It was _weird._ Who does that?” Axel bit into the apple and chewed open-mouthed, unperturbed by the small chunks of fruit spraying across the carpet. “If he wasn’t so pretty, I’d be enraged right now.”

Saïx’s gaze flicked up at Axel. “You’re not mad?”

“No? I mean…” Axel trailed off, leaning back into the couch cushions. “…Maybe? I feel like there’s something there that I’m missing. I want to know what it is.”

“Believe me, you miss a lot of things. This one probably isn’t all that important.” Saïx closed the book, the cover flopping shut over its stacked pages, and stood up from the couch. “I’m going to bed because I’m not really in the mood to listen to you wax poetic about your love life tonight. Don’t stay up too late.”

Axel kicked at Saïx’s heels as he passed. “Don’t forget to take your teeth out tonight, old-timer.”

Saïx’s bedroom door clicked closed, leaving Axel alone in the living room with a half-eaten apple and a nagging sense of melancholy. He checked his phone for the time and noticed a notification at the top of the lock screen. He tapped the notification on impulse, without checking the name of the contact.

He read the text: _hey, sorry about tonight. i'm a little weird about dating_

Axel pursed his lips, intrigued. _I noticed. Is everything okay?_

Roxas responded a few moments later. _yes and no. it's kind of hard to explain_

Axel chucked the apple onto the coffee table in front of the couch, suddenly in need of both of his hands to text. _Want to talk about it?_

Another quick response: _if you want? i understand if you’d rather not meet up again_

As he read Roxas’s reply, Axel found himself smiling. _Does that mean you’re down for round 2?_

A longer delay from Roxas, but nothing worrying: _yeah, i think so. maybe the movie this time?_

Axel’s grin widened. _I’m free on Tuesday night._ He followed with a suggestion for a local theater with reclining seats and ample showtimes. _9 again?_

_okay, awesome. see you then_

Axel gripped his phone in one hand and fist-pumped with the other. Jumping to his feet, he knocked into the coffee table, sending his forgotten apple rolling across the carpet. He picked it up before it rolled into the television stand, threw it into the kitchen’s wastebasket despite the clattering it made as it hit the bottom, and sauntered into his bedroom, across from Saïx’s.

He collapsed into a burst of laughter on his bed, burying his face in the covers to dampen the sound. A second date, this quickly? His luck was turning around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the only split-POV chapter in the entire work. Kind of funny, right? (That's because the drama thickens from here, and the aftermaths become long enough to be their own chapters.)
> 
> Also, a big thank-you to everyone who's read and commented so far! The idea that my work has an audience definitely helps with morale. xD


	5. Absolutely, Certainly a Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for romance repulsion in this chapter!

As Roxas turned from the main street into the theater’s parking lot, he spotted Axel loitering against the theater’s front wall, his bright red hair sticking out from the rugged brick wall interspersed with framed and backlit movie posters. He pulled into a space near the edge of the lot, taking a deep breath and shifting gears. _I can do this,_ Roxas reminded himself, in spite of his racing heart. _Now or never_.

Axel brightened as Roxas approached, taking his hands out of his pockets and closing the gap between them. Axel’s outfit, a dark jacket fitted over a V-neck t-shirt and strategically-ripped jeans, set off warning bells in the back of Roxas’s mind. “Roxas! Wow, you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

_Shit. He looks serious about this date._ Roxas demurred, stuffing his car keys into the kangaroo pocket of his sweatshirt and glancing at his feet. “All in a day’s work, I guess.” He met Axel’s eyes and immediately shrank at the shine he saw within them. He focused on the theater’s front entrance instead. “Shall we?”

Axel stifled a laugh. “Yeah, of course! After you.” He held his arm out toward the entrance, two fingers pointed at the door.

Roxas entered the movie theater lobby with Axel close behind. He moved to the side of the doors, staring at the screens above the ticket kiosks displaying movie titles and showtimes. “Was there anything you really wanted to see? I haven’t really kept up with movie releases since I moved.”

“You moved?” Axel sidled next to Roxas on the right, nudging him with an elbow. “Since when?”

“I didn’t tell you? I’m new in town. I moved a couple of months ago.” Roxas’s right side squished toward his center of gravity, away from Axel’s advance.

Axel tilted his head backward and looked down at Roxas. “New in town, eh? That explains why I hadn’t seen you around before.”

_Shit. He’s getting ideas. Not good._ “What about that one?” Roxas asked, pointing to the title of the latest installment of a superhero franchise with an approaching start time on the nearest schedule board. “It’s probably not abysmal.”

“Fine by me. It’s starting soon, though—we should get tickets.” Axel motioned to a nearby kiosk with a short line of people in front, then moved to join the queue.

“Oh, hold on—” Roxas sputtered to catch up with Axel’s long stride. “Wait!” he said, holding up one hand in a ‘stop’ gesture.

Axel raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

Roxas’s posture reset as he remembered himself, his shoulders, torso, and legs shifting back to factory position. “Do you mind if I cover the tickets? It’s the least I can do after the arcade.” _Also, I can’t let you pay on the date I’m eventually going to ruin for you._

Axel relaxed and lowered into an easy simper. “Whatever you want, man. If you get the tickets, I’ll get the snacks. I mean, if you’re okay with it.”

“That... makes me feel a lot better, actually.” _That’s a friend-thing, not a date-thing, thank god._ Roxas sat back on his heels, knees unlocking and alarm fading.

Axel nodded, regarding Roxas with a cryptic expression as his weight shifted onto one leg.

Roxas’s flight response threatened to activate under Axel’s stare. “What’s that look for?” he asked, laughing nervously.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you relax.” Axel glanced in the direction of the ticket kiosk, indicating the blank-faced ticket teller behind the glass window. “Guess that means you’re up. I’m going inside to get stuff from the concession stand. See you in there.”

Roxas watched Axel bound into the theater proper in his peripheral vision as he walked up to the kiosk and purchased two tickets for the movie, selecting two adjacent seats on the theater map screen in front of the kiosk. As soon as the teller pushed the printed tickets through the opening in the kiosk glass, Roxas swiped them away, giving a halfhearted wave to the teller before rushing inside. 

Roxas found Axel standing in the forking line of the concession stand, gawking at the menus mounted on the wall behind the counter. “Are you a popcorn person or a candy person?”

Axel startled at the sudden question, but quickly sunk back into his previous languid demeanor. “Why choose? They make a good pair. A balanced palate.”

“Not at movie theater prices, they don’t.” Roxas wrinkled his nose at the numbers next to the concession stand’s offerings on the menu boards.

Axel shrugged, chuckling lightly. “I guess I’m not big on cost aversion. Any snack requests? If not, I’m following my gut, which demands both salty and sweet movie snacks at any and all film screenings.”

“Hey, it’s your wallet’s funeral. Get whatever snacks your gut desires.”

Axel clapped his hands together as he began to shimmy toward the counter. “ _Now_ you’re speaking my language. Wait here,” he said. In minutes, Axel walked away from the counter with a large tub of popcorn tucked in the crook of his elbow and three boxes of nonpareils in one hand. He handed the candy boxes to Roxas. “Here, take these. It’s dangerous to go alone.”

Roxas accepted the boxes with a wince. _Please stop._ “Yikes. Corny.”

Axel repositioned the tub of popcorn between his hands as the pair strode toward the usher standing at a podium in front of the hallway leading to the individual theaters. “Hey, don’t let anyone tell you I don’t know how to be charming.”

“I don’t know if I’d call that charming,” Roxas said, turning over the movie tickets to the usher and receiving ticket stubs in return. “‘Embarrassing’ is a more appropriate term.”

A faint flush spread across Axel’s cheeks, announcing its presence like a student who accidentally walked into an unfamiliar classroom. “I’m not exactly above embarrassing myself, either.”

Roxas felt the color drain from his own cheeks, the air colder and his skin burning. _Please don’t let that mean what I think it means._ “That’s brave of you, I guess.” He stopped at the doors of a theater halfway down the hallway and compared the number above the threshold with the number on the ticket stubs. “This is it.”

“Nice.” Axel took a preemptive handful of popcorn before following Roxas through the weighted double-doors. “Where are our seats?”

Squinting in the dim theater light, Roxas checked the seat numbers on the ticket stubs, and led the way to a pair of seats on the far side of the theater. “I hope you don’t mind sitting on the side. This showing was almost sold out.”

Axel dropped himself into the seat on the left, his legs extending out before crossing under him. “I guess I’ll allow it _this_ time,” he said, pushing himself against the seat back. “Have you seen any of these movies before?”

The pair chatted idly throughout the previews as the rest of the theatergoers filtered inside, bringing their own backdrop of popcorn crunched, candy wrappers opened, and fan arguments raged. As the previews ended and the theater darkened, Axel placed the tub of popcorn on the armrest between him and Roxas. “I can and will eat this entire thing if you don’t stop me,” he explained in a whisper as the opening credits rolled.

Roxas picked out a few popped kernels and chewed absentmindedly, curling onto his side as the movie entered its first big-budget ensemble battle. In his peripheral vision, he saw Axel alternating between nonpareils and popcorn, shooting a few furtive glances in Roxas’s direction but otherwise focusing on the movie. _Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not try anything. Hands to yourself, eyes to yourself, please just watch the superheroes save the day._

The end credits rolled two and a half hours later, marking no attempts at courting on Axel’s part for the entirety of the film. Roxas masked a sigh of relief with a yawn as he began stretching in his seat, arms over his head and fingers laced together. He reached into the popcorn tub to find it empty, save for scant unpopped kernels and residual butter-flavored grease. “Did you really eat all the popcorn?” he asked. “That’s impressive.”

Axel kept quiet for a few seconds, then abruptly turned to face Roxas. In the soft after-movie theater lighting, he almost appeared to be pouting. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah? Why?” Roxas felt himself retreat into the far corner of his seat. 

Axel signalled at the space between his and Roxas’s seats with an open hand, indicating Roxas’s position curled against the armrest on the opposite side. “You’re really far away.”

“Oh.” Roxas’s gaze fell to the armrest. _Shit. I didn’t even think about that._ “I guess I didn’t notice.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

Roxas looked up to see Axel staring intently at him, eyebrows drawn together in a transparent effort to contain hurt feelings. _Oops._ “N-no, you’re okay. I always lean on that side with I watch movies,” he stuttered, waving his hands in front of his chest. 

Axel’s containment efforts relaxed, their intended prisoners apparently retracting their escape. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, of course.” Roxas offered a reassuring shove on the shoulder with his fist. “If you did something, I’d definitely tell you.” _Great. Now I’m lying to him._

Satisfied, Axel knit his fingers together and stretched his arms out, parallel to the floor. “In that case, we should clean up and get out of here,” he said, his lackadaisical tone restored. “Can you get the boxes?”

“I’ll do you one better.” Roxas took the empty candy boxes from the cupholder between their seats and tossed them into the empty tub of popcorn. He picked up the tub by the rim and gave it a quick shake. “Portable trash can.” _Dumb joke. Levity. I hope it works._

Axel paused, then laughed hard enough to snort. “Okay, okay, let’s take our trash can and get out of here before the theater janitors get mad at us.”

Axel stayed surprisingly quiet as they threw out the popcorn tub and left the theater, but began talking again after they pushed through the front exit doors together. “By the way,” he said, as he stepped into the almost-midnight chill outside with Roxas following behind, “you never told me why you moved.”

Unfazed, Roxas pulled his car keys from the pocket of his sweatshirt. “Oh, that’s easy. I moved for a job.”

Axel’s gait slowed to keep pace with Roxas as they headed toward the parking lot. “Where do you work?”

The ramifications of answering truthfully hissed a warning in Roxas’s ear, though his sense of self-preservation took no heed. “The library by the coffee shop. I’m a librarian.”

“Yeah?” Axel hustled in front of Roxas and began walking backward, the tallest of the spikes in his hair blocking the streetlight above. “You don’t look like the bookish type.”

_I probably don’t look like the ‘aro type,’ either._ “I guess I play my cards close to my chest.” Roxas stopped short at the curb separating the theater’s front sidewalk from the parking lot. _I should probably tell you about that. Right._

Axel tapped Roxas’s shoulder with the back of his hand, oblivious to the sudden shift. “That means you’ve got all the good book recommendations, right? My roommate is a big literature snob.”

“Honestly, my taste tends to border on schlock. I’m not much help unless you want to read about robots fighting aliens or women in refrigerators. What about you?” _Damnit. Don’t get sidetracked. You have something important to do. Book talks can wait._

As he rocked back onto his heels, Axel’s bombast receded. “I don’t read all that much, honestly. I think the last book I finished was _Of Mice and Men_ in eleventh grade.” 

“That’s a pretty good pick, though. Short, sweet, to the point. I like that about Steinbeck’s shorter work.” _Fuck. Get to the point. Now is not the time to encourage literacy in strangers._

“You’re saying words but I don’t completely follow.” Axel landed on the balls of his feet, looking at the ground while his knees flexed. 

Roxas turned to face the street, silently cursing himself for smiling at Axel’s self-deprecation. “Well, stop by if you ever want to better acquaint yourself with the written word. I’ll hook you up with the sickest body horror you’ve ever encountered.” _Okay, literacy encouraged, librarian duty done. Confess yourself._

“Would it be more horrific than an anatomy textbook? Most of those diagrams are pretty sick to begin with.” 

When Roxas turned back, he saw that Axel’s bombast had returned, puffing out his chest and tilting back his head. “Yeah, probably. Fewer pictures, though, unless you wanted a graphic novel. For which I can also give recommendations, by the way.” _Roxas. Focus. Tell. Him._

The conversation fell into a crackling silence, with Roxas’s confession hanging in the ether as the rest of him itched to cross over the curb to his car. _Okay, now. Now._

Before Roxas’s statement could find its voice, Axel spoke up. “Hey, before we go,” he said, stepping forward to tower over Roxas, “I, uh, have a question.”

Roxas situated himself back on the curb. “Okay, shoot.” _Please be a question that I can answer honestly. And then follow up with what I need to say._

Axel stepped forward again, a hair too eager to be casual. “Before you go… there’s something I want to try. Do you mind?” 

Roxas frowned. “Do I mind wha—” 

In an instant, reality shattered. Electric ice shot through Roxas’s heart as Axel leaned forward, pressing his lips against Roxas’s with rhythmic, pulsing motions. Roxas yelped and jumped backward, his footsteps unsteady on the pavement but compelled to race away.

He righted himself and gawked at Axel, whose lips now quivered as they pressed together. Roxas clenched his jaw as he willed his racing heartbeat to stop sledgehammering against his chest. _Damn it. Too late._ “I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice shaky with halfhearted breaths. “I have to go.”

Roxas blinked away tears and broke into a run, unlocking his car and stuffing himself into the driver’s seat in one decidedly ungraceful swoop. He rocketed out of the parking lot with trembling hands, vision blurred and cheeks soaked. As he looped around the theater to the back exit, he caught a glimpse of Axel, standing in one place with his chin tucked into his chest and his fists balled at his sides.

Roxas swore he could see Axel’s shoulders shaking from a hundred feet away. His own unadulterated sobs burst forth in sympathy. In his quest to burn himself, he realized, he had taken an innocent victim.


	6. The Aftermath II Part 1

Axel found his way back to the apartment on the combined forces of repulsion to social spaces and revulsion of social encounters. By the time he unlocked the door and stumbled inside, his eyes and nose were rubbed red and fully drained. He abandoned his keys and shoes in the threshold and padded down the hallway, sniffing intermittently against the scratchiness.

He nudged open the door to Saïx’s bedroom, careful to avoid upsetting its creaky hinge. In the low light from the window by the bed, Axel could make out Saïx’s sleeping form, laying on his side in matching plaid flannel pajamas with the sheets crumpled in a pile at his feet. Axel padded across the carpet, hugging himself at the elbows to avoid breaking down prematurely.

Axel pressed lightly on the mattress, half an inch from Saïx’s shoulders. “Hey, Saïx,” he whispered, cracked and reeling. “Are you asleep?”

Saïx grumbled in a mostly-asleep dialect and drew his legs further into his chest.

Axel pressed on the mattress again. “Saïx? Are you awake?”

The answer came with a sharp inhale and a pair of hands migrating to the face. “I am now,” Saïx said, sleep coating the sounds from the back of his throat. “What is it?”

“I… I really need you right now.” Axel’s breath caught as a second round of tears escaped onto Saïx’s bedspread.

Saïx squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. “Isn’t it the middle of the night?” he asked, rolling onto his back.

Axel tightened his grip on his arms as violent sobs wracked his body, sending him shuddering and pitching forward. Saïx sat up abruptly, bringing his limbs close to his torso, just before Axel’s upper body draped across his mattress. Axel felt a warm hand on his shoulder blade as he knelt, gritting his teeth and fighting for breath.

“Is everything okay?” Saïx asked, as he rubbed crosshatches on Axel’s back with his thumb. “Did something happen?”

Axel nodded, letting out a whining sound as another sob escaped.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Axel wiped at his eyes with flat palms and managed a mucousy full breath. “Yeah. Maybe.” 

Saïx bowed his head and pushed himself out of bed, placing his feet firmly on the floor before sitting cross-legged next to Axel. He rested his back against the side of his mattress, his hands folded in his lap. “I’m listening. Whenever you’re ready.”

Axel took in another satisfactory breath and shifted to sit against the side of the mattress, extending his legs in front of himself and crossing them at the ankle. He stared at his feet, unable to look at Saïx. “He... ran away, Saïx.”

Saïx cocked his head to the side. “Who did?” 

“Roxas. The guy from the Open Mic Night. We had a second date tonight, and it went okay but I went ahead and kissed him and he freaked out and _literally_ ran away—” Axel’s cadence wavered, his face turning away behind one hand. “I just—”

Saïx’s brow furrowed. “He ran away? How?”

“We were—” Axel started, swallowing against a knot in his throat, “—we were standing outside, and he was about to leave, and I didn’t want the date to end, so I kissed him out in the open, and he literally jumped backward and ran back to his car and drove away.” Axel rubbed at his cheeks, tossed his head back against the mattress. “What is _wrong_ with me?”

“Axel, nothing’s wrong with you. It sounds like Roxas has his own issues.” Saïx laid his head back onto the mattress, lolling it to the side to look at Axel. “It’s probably not personal.”

“Yeah? It feels personal.” Axel blinked against newly-dried eyes. “Everything was fine before I fucked it up.”

“Did you, though? For all you know, Roxas had something personal going on already. It might have all just come to a head at an inopportune time.” Saïx rested a reassuring hand on Axel’s shoulder for added comfort.

Axel’s gaze lingered on Saïx’s hand, then dropped to the floor. “You might be objectively right, but it doesn’t _feel_ right to me. Remember Demyx? He bailed after I asked him to go steady two weeks in.” He sat back onto his haunches, slouching forward.

Saïx rolled his eyes. “Demyx is a flake. Don’t worry about him.”

“And Larxene? She practically ripped my out spine out when I tried to give her something on her birthday that one time.”

“But I thought you guys worked it out?” Saïx sat upright, pressing his knuckles into the floor. “Besides, you weren’t dating Larxene. You guys were just work friends.”

“That’s not the point.” Axel shook his head and ran his palms down his thighs to wipe away some of the sweat that had accumulated there during his outburst. “It’s just… I do these things that feel okay in the moment, and people… don’t like them.” 

“Yes, and?” One of Saïx’s eyebrows rose expectantly. 

“And, like…” Axel reclined against the mattress, the small of his back thunking as it made contact with the bed frame. “…why does this always happen? What about me makes people…” He stopped himself, covering his eyes with his hands. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”

Saïx sighed, humming on the exhale. “Do you want my honest answer, or the feel-good answer?”

Axel closed his eyes beneath his hands. “Feel-good.”

“Everyone else is a jerk and you did nothing wrong.”

Axel glowered in Saïx’s direction, but the anger behind the expression melted as the words sunk in. His arms fell limp at his sides. “You really mean that?” 

Saïx shifted toward Axel, tucking his feet under himself. “Yeah, I do.”

A weak smiled pulled at the edges of Axel’s mouth as he recognized Saïx’s tactics. “Okay, now what’s the honest answer?” he asked, laughing at himself.

“You move too quickly. It overwhelms people.” Saïx cracked a sympathetic grin. 

“You think?” Axel pulled one hand to eye level, glanced at his fingernails, then dropped it back to the floor. “How am I supposed to fixthat?”

“Introspection and honest effort, most likely.” Saïx shrugged and got to his feet, the strands of hair loosened from his haphazard sleeping ponytail glinting in the ambient light. “Now that we have that issue settled, let’s adjourn. I have to get up in an hour for work.”

Axel craned his neck to read the time on Saïx’s digital clock, perched on the nearby nightstand. Axel’s overworked heart missed a beat when he saw the hour displayed in red, blocky numbers. “Oh, shit, I work today, too. _Fuck._ Okay, meeting adjourned,” he said, leaping from his seat and scrambling across the bedroom floor. He hesitated at the door, one hand on the doorframe, and looked back at Saïx. “We’ll talk again later, right?”

Saïx yawned, already wrapped in his sheets and adjusting his head on his pillow. “Yeah, sure. After I get through my opening shift.”

Axel remained in the doorway for several minutes, tiptoeing out of the room only after Saïx’s breathing fell deep and even. “Thanks, man.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaah the first inklings of the AkuSai content have appeared, and this fic moves ever-so-closer to the queerplatonic OT3 it's meant to be. :) We're not remotely close, but we're getting there. Soon. Eventually.


	7. The Aftermath II Part 2

Roxas squinted in the early-morning sunshine, adjusting his sun visor in a series of futile attempts to spare himself the reminder that he had spent the night driving aimlessly and avoiding his own thoughts. He cut a sharp left turn as he claimed his staff parking spot in the hidden lot behind the library building, a full hour and a half before the building would open. With a cursory glance at himself in the rearview mirror, he deemed himself marginally presentable, and set off for the coffee shop on foot.

He plodded into the establishment, dragging his feet over the pavement outside to the tiled floor inside. The barista, a slender man with long hair pulled into a loose ponytail and an apron tied behind his neck, smirked as he saw Roxas approach. “Rough night?” he asked, in a way that suggested he already knew the answer.

Roxas rubbed at his eyes. “Some kind of night, anyway. What’s the strongest thing you have?”

“We have a cold brew that’ll get you there. Or we could put a couple espresso shots in some milk if you’d rather.”

Roxas blinked a few times, struggling to determine how wide to keep his eyes. “Let’s do both. I’m feeling adventurous.”

The barista questioned Roxas with an uncertain glance. “You’d like two drinks, or the espresso shots put into the cold brew?” 

“Yes.” Roxas stared blankly at the barista, delirium rendering him unable to parse the notion of making a choice. He noticed the barista’s nametag pinned on his apron through the haze of his own fatigue. “Please. Sakes.”

Roxas watched as the barista suppressed an eye roll with a clearly-practiced customer-service grin. “It’s Saïx, actually. It rhymes with ‘dialects.’ Could I have a name for your order?” He typed a few numbers into the cash register without looking at the display.

“Roxas.”

Saïx paused and narrowed his eyes, then reached for a paper coffee cup from a stack by the register. “I’m giving you the cold brew with the espresso added. You look like you need it.”

“Why are you saying it like it’s a death sentence?” Roxas asked, a shudder wracking his overtired frame.

“Because it is. It’ll taste terrible and you won’t sleep for a few days.” Saïx shrugged. “It’s cheaper than getting two drinks, at least.”

“That’s fine, I guess,” Roxas replied, waving noncommittally in an unspecified direction. He tossed a few crumpled dollar bills onto the counter before Saïx could tell him the cost of the drink order. “Go ahead and fuck me up.”

Saïx offered a polite chuckle in response as he smoothed the bills into the cash register’s drawer. “Sure thing, Roxas. Coming right up.”

Saïx handed the paper cup, now bearing Roxas’s name scrawled in black marker, to another slender man with long hair wearing an apron behind the counter. The second barista set to work preparing Roxas’s drink. “It’ll be a few minutes,” Saïx explained, leaning forward and bracing his lower arms against the countertop. “Hope that’s okay.”

Roxas mumbled an indistinct response, the backs of his knuckles pressed against his closed eyes.

“You know,” Saïx said, just as some piece of coffee-producing machinery sprung to noisy life behind him, “my roommate once went on a date with someone named Roxas.”

Roxas lifted his hands away from his face, half-awake and half-processing Saïx’s words. “Oh, yeah? Weird.”

“It didn’t go well. He woke me up at two o’clock in the morning after that because he was having an emotional crisis, and calling his capacity to connect to other people in question.”

Roxas’s eyelids fluttered, nearly threatening to remain closed. “That’s too bad.”

A voice from behind the counter called out Roxas’s order. The second barista placed the cup with Roxas’s name, now outfitted with a plastic lid and a cardboard sleeve, next to Saïx, who slid the cup toward Roxas across the countertop. “All ready.”

Roxas nodded and stepped forward, reaching to take the coffee from Saïx’s grasp. “Thanks.” He brought the coffee to his lips reflexively and took a long, drawn-out sip.

“Oh, and by the way,” Saïx added, as Roxas shocked awake at the bitter taste, “Axel sends his regards.”

Roxas froze at the mention of Axel’s name, one foot in mid-step as he turned to leave. He heard Saïx scoff from his post behind the counter. “Of course. I thought it was you.”

Roxas took a deep breath, forcing himself forward through the coffee shop’s front door and back onto the street. He nursed the coffee as he strode back to the library, praying that whatever was in the cold brew and espresso would pull the double duty of keeping him both conscious and emotionally stable for the rest of the workday.

* * *

“Roxas, are you okay?”

Roxas returned to the information desk with his sixth Styrofoam cup of lackluster break room coffee, skimming from the top before setting it next to the stack of used Styrofoam cups on the desk. Permeating above and through the library's maze of desks and shelves, the ambiance of beeping checkout machines, clacking keyboards attached to public-use computers, and puttering conversations between strangers anchored him to the present time and space. He slipped into his swiveling chair and let himself spin enough to face Naminé, who sat at the secondary station of the desk. “Never better,” he answered, fighting to calm the trembling in his muscles. “Why do you ask?”

Naminé shied from Roxas’s gaze, her fairy-blonde hair falling over her eyes. “It’s just… you don’t look well. Are you sure you don’t want to go home early?”

Roxas cackled at the idea, more derisively than he intended. “And do what? I’d rather be busy with something.”

Naminé returned her attention to the computer at her station, pulling her shoulders into her chest. “You’re scaring me, Roxas. I don’t think you should be interacting with patrons right now.”

Roxas sagged into the back of his chair, rotating slowly to face his own computer. “Is it really that bad?” he wondered aloud for Naminé to hear. If Naminé, the kindest of his colleagues, saw fit to point out his behavior, he probably should have taken a personal day. 

He could see Naminé agreeing in his peripheral vision, her chin bobbing gently. “It’s been pretty quiet today,” she said, with measured caution. “If you were to… I mean, I could cover both our positions for the rest of today, if you needed.”

From his station at the information desk, Roxas scanned the main floor of the library: to his left, aisles of bookshelves and book displays on fading carpet; to his right, rows of public use computers with matching screensavers and boxy monitors; directly in front of him, the main entrance created by two sets of glass double doors. The checkout counter, set off to the side of the main entrance, stood completely abandoned, save for a clerk organizing books on a shelving cart along the back wall. Roxas counted fewer than three library patrons milling around the library in total. “Are you sure? I’m a little new to be taking personal time.” Roxas recalled his training period not two months prior, sweating under the icy surveillance of the head librarian.

“I’ll handle Marluxia,” Naminé replied, a slight giggle in her voice. “He can be persuaded.”

Roxas swiveled abruptly. “Persuaded to do _what?”_

Naminé giggled again, less restrained. “We’ve known each other for a while. He’s not above seeing reason.” 

“…And I think that’s my cue to leave. I’ll just… try to head home, and try not to think about whatever you’re insinuating.” Roxas shook away racing thoughts of incriminating assumptions and tossed the empty Styrofoam cups into the trash can under the information desk. After punching out in the library’s electronic time card system from his computer, he rushed around the side of the desk in a mad dash for the front exit.

“Good idea. Get some rest!” Naminé called out, waving from her post.

“No promises!” he called back, breaking into a run as the automatic library doors closed behind him.

A wave of exhaustion crashed into Roxas as he pulled out of the staff parking lot, the hours of waking anxiety overtaking his meager defenses of avoidance and caffeine. He turned off the car radio, the tinny bass beats exacerbating the pounding in his head, and drove down the road until a large store sign with concentric red circles rose on the horizon. He hooked a right turn into the store’s parking lot and puttered into a parking space along the store’s nearest wall in first gear.

Roxas retrieved his phone from his pocket and selected the first person on his speed-dial, curling into his seat as he tapped at the screen. When Sora picked up, Roxas maneuvered himself sideways, laying one cheek against the seat’s upholstery. “Hey.”

“Hey?” Crackling noises emanated from Sora’s end of the call. “What’s up, Roxas?”

Roxas closed his eyes and exhaled. “I don’t even know.”

“Whaddya mean you don’t know?” More crackling noises, gradually transitioning to the sounds of a whisk against a metal bowl. “What happened?”

“I did another bad thing,” Roxas said, deep in vocal fry.

Sora’s end of the line dropped into a deathly silence. “Roxas. You didn’t.”

“And then some.” The side of Roxas’s face sunk into the back of his seat. “Actually, not exactly. We didn’t do anything. Well, _I_ didn’t, at least.”

“Woah, hold on”—a slamming sound, then some background noise—“start over.” Sora’s voice became more distant as its inflections hardened. “What happened?”

Roxas let out a whistling breath through his teeth. “I went for the second date. And I, uh, lost my composure.”

“As in?”

“He kissed me and I literally ran away. Left him on the sidewalk and everything. I think I saw him crying as I drove away.”

The microphone picked up a sigh from the other end of the line. “Roxas.”

Roxas turned to face forward in his seat, bringing his knees to rest against the underside of his steering wheel. “I know. I fucked up.”

“Hold on with the value judgments,” Sora chided, behind intermittent static on the line. “Did you give him any indication that you were romantically interested?”

“I mean, I went on the second date. Isn’t that enough in itself?” Roxas massaged one temple with his free hand, two fingers kneading in small circles on the side of his forehead. “You called it. You were right.”

“I dunno. Did he ask?”

A soft gagging noise left Roxas’s throat. “Did he ask to kiss me? No, but—”

“Then you’re good. He forgot to get consent, which puts the responsibility on him.”

Roxas bit his lip. “I guess, but—”

“No buts! Quit beating yourself up—”

“—But I was the one who brought up the second date,” Roxas said, one palm sliding down the side of his face and distorting his enunciation. “I texted him to apologize after the arcade—”

“Which was your first mistake, for sure.”

“—and what started as an offer to explain myself turned into a movie date, which turned into an emotional disaster, and now I’ve spent the last fifteen hours awake and one stressor away from a nuclear, caffeine-fueled breakdown.” Sensing his internal pressure rising and his self-control waning, Roxas made a conscious effort to relax his grip on his phone. “I didn’t even get the chance to explain.” 

Sora snickered without remorse. “No surprise there. You never end up explaining anything.”

“It never comes up!” Roxas said, his voice pitching higher in his register. He stopped himself, then cleared his throat. “It’s hard to address in a normal conversation. ‘Hey, just so you know, I’m aromantic and I know you probably don’t know what that means, so I’ll spend the next twenty minutes awkwardly describing myself to you and you still won’t get it, but that’s cool because I’m probably going to ghost you anyway to avoid dealing with the consequences of my actions. Nothing personal.’”

“It sounds so romantic when you put it like that.”

“Don’t even joke, Sora. I’m not in the mood.”

Sora laughed, the sound brighter and lighter than his interrogation voice. “Okay, okay, sorry. Where are you now?”

Roxas shifted in the driver’s seat, twisting and bending forward to survey his surroundings through his windshield. “I’m in front of a Target.”

“Okay, so here’s what you do: go into Target, wander around, pick up whatever looks cool. Target will show you what you need.” Roxas could almost hear Sora nodding sagely on the other end of the line, clearly pleased with himself.

Roxas fired back with a scowl. “Which blog posted that little pearl of wisdom?”

“Actually, Riku swears by the healing power of retail therapy. It’s why we have lace tablecloths. Don’t ask me.”

Roxas grunted, unenthusiastic about the suggestion but too tired to formulate his own plan of action. “Fine, whatever. I’m hanging up and going inside. I hope you step on a Lego brick sometime in the near future.”

“Woah, you _are_ grumpy today,” Sora remarked. “Once you’re done in Target, go home and go to bed.”

“Fuck you.”

* * *

Ninety minutes later, Roxas emerged from the expansive network of aisles and endcaps with an armful of specialty herbal tea blends, a decorative coffee mug, and a paperback copy of a New York Times bestseller with orange and blue cover art. He held the book by its spine while letting the mug hang from his fingers by its handle, casually swinging his arm as he headed to the checkout lanes. Fatigue still sat around his joints and muscles in weighted knots, but his spirit floated above the mire for the first time since leaving the movie theater the night before. 

He strode into the checkout lane with the shortest line, taking his place behind a woman with a basket full of craft supplies and a pair of teenagers with energy drinks and bags of potato chips tucked in the crooks of their elbows. The clerk at the register made short work of their purchases, scanning and bagging the miscellaneous items in under a minute per customer.

Roxas placed his selections on the conveyor belt and stepped up to the register as the teenagers bounded away with their snacks stored away in white plastic bags. He wrenched his wallet from his back pocket and pulled out a credit card without looking up at the clerk.

“Did you find everything okay today?”

Roxas snapped to attention at the familiar voice. “Oh, hi,” he replied, feeling his pulse accelerate.

Axel glared at Roxas for half a second, then reapplied his customer-service persona. His bright red hair, camouflaged by the store’s red decor and his uniform’s red shirt, rested at the base of his neck in a tight hairband. “Was this everything for you today?”

Roxas stood, wide-eyed and dumbfounded. “Um, yeah.”

Axel scanned each item with practiced flicks of the wrist, bagging each as he went. He wrapped the coffee mug in thick beige packing paper before nestling it between the boxes of tea in the bag. “Cash or card?” he asked, entering something on the register screen.

Roxas held up his credit card, unable to look at Axel directly. Axel tapped the register screen and pointed at the card reader attached to the customer side of the checkout lane. Roxas swiped his card without fanfare.

“Thanks for shopping with us,” Axel recited, separating Roxas’s bag from the stack of unused plastic bags beneath it and unceremoniously depositing it onto the customer side of the lane. Axel turned back to the register, his gaze fixed firmly on everything other than Roxas. “Have a good day.”

Roxas retrieved the bag with one hand and shoved his other hand into his pocket. He hovered at the register, caught in between his conscience and his sense of self-preservation. Finally, his sleeplessness gave way to recklessness. “I think I owe you an apology.”

“Oh?” Axel glanced at Roxas from the corners of his eyes. “What makes you say that?” Venom dripped from beneath Axel’s customer-service smile, sending a chill down Roxas’s spine.

“It’s just…” Roxas scratched the back of his neck and stared at the floor. “What I did wasn’t cool, and I’m sorry.”

“Sure, okay. Whatever you say,” Axel sneered.

Roxas’s grasp tightened on the handles of his shopping bag, the plastic crinkling between his fingers. “I’m serious. I’m sorry.”

“I believe you,” Axel said, returning his attention to the register. “Thanks for stopping in today.”

Roxas sighed to himself, his eyes downcast. “Yeah, I deserve that.” He took one step backward, then another, then another, until he felt a breeze coming from the store’s opened automatic doors behind him. “Have a good day, then,” he muttered, swinging his plastic bag and marking down the consequences of his actions as officially faced. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Librarian!Naminé and Target!Axel are super fun to conceptualize and write! They're among my favorite of the little details in this AU. :)


	8. Status Quo

Saïx returned to his apartment carrying a large black tea latte in a travel cup, skimmed from behind the counter while his boss was busy placating a demanding customer whose soy flat-white had accidentally been prepared with whole milk. Saïx counted himself lucky that his shift had both started and ended early, allowing him to avoid the needy customers who came in for two o’clock espresso shots and 2:15 complaints to management.

He pulled himself into one of the stools set around the kitchen table, resting his elbows on the table as he sipped from his drink. He spared a glance at the digital clock on the stove display: the blocky numbers read half-past two o’clock. If memory served, Axel’s shift at Target ended at three, and he would come crashing through the front door at approximately 3:25 pm. Saïx picked up a news magazine from the pile on the far end of the table and began flipping to the cover story. The peace he needed for information retention would undoubtedly vanish as soon as Axel came home. 

Saïx heard the front door unlock at precisely 3:24 pm, as if on cue. Axel burst through the door in a huff, his red polo shirt wrinkled in places and his hair escaping from its ponytail strand by buoyant strand. Saïx’s heartbeat stuttered as he took in the image. “Welcome back,” he managed. “How was work?”

Axel threw his keys at the bowl by the front door, missing spectacularly. The keys hit the wall and clanked onto the floor behind the couch. “Work fucking _happened,_ that’s what.” He stomped into the kitchen and slumped against the refrigerator, glowering in Saïx’s direction. “You wouldn’t fucking _believe_ the shit I had to deal with today.”

Saïx turned in his stool to face Axel, tea latte in hand. “Do tell,” he said, raising his eyebrows over the top of the travel cup.

Axel tore away his hairband and shook his head, his hair falling in fried, overdyed chunks around his face. Saïx felt a flutter in his chest as he watched Axel preen—proof that Axel trusted Saïx enough to let him see the natural state of his hair, sans spray and gel and free of workplace dress code restrictions. “He had the nerve to come into my store, get into _my_ checkout lane even though Larxene’s was wide open, and—”

“Who, exactly?” Saïx asked, tilting himself ever-so-slightly in Axel’s direction. From past experience, he knew it was best to encourage Axel’s boisterous storytelling while the memories were fresh, lest he ruminate for too long and work himself into a bigger lather. 

Axel scoffed and threw his head back. “ _Roxas._ Jeez, Saïx, keep up.” He ran a hand through his hair, scratching at his scalp as he combed. “He comes up to me with some lame-ass boxed tea and then is all, ‘I’m sorry,’ but honestly? Fuck that guy. I don’t care.” He tugged at some loose hair strands, sending them floating to the floor. “A waste of my time.”

Saïx tilted in the other direction on instinct. “You don’t think he was sincere?”

“I don’t care if he ends up being the most honest person to ever tell the truth. He’s dead to me.”

Saïx sipped from his latte, silently recounting his own encounter with Roxas earlier that day. Aside from the cavernous bags under his eyes and obvious delirium, Roxas had appeared relatively level-headed. Saïx had given him a hard time for Axel’s sake, but held no ill will towards Roxas himself. “Sounds like you have it figured out.”

Axel pointed a self-righteous finger at Saïx. “Damn straight.” As he finished the statement, Axel dropped his hand to his side and rested his forehead against the refrigerator, the fury that had been driving him finally deflated and defanged. “I’m so tired, Saïx.”

“Well, of course. You had four hours of sleep last night.”

“No, I mean”—Axel crossed his arms and pouted—“I’m tired of people, and having feelings, and having feelings _about_ people. It’s exhausting.” He let out a sigh, deflating further.

Saïx’s heart leapt into his throat. He swallowed forcefully enough to guide it back into his rib cage. “That’s… unfortunate. At least it’s over, right?”

Axel crumpled against the refrigerator as his arms locked tightly around themselves, his efforts to hold himself together visibly failing. “No, it’s not. It’s never over. I can’t…”

Saïx uncrossed his legs and got to his feet, moving toward Axel with careful footsteps. He placed a hand on Axel’s shoulder. “Axel, It’s going to be okay,” he soothed, as softly as he could. 

Whimpering at the touch, Axel collapsed into a waiting embrace, throwing his arms around Saïx’s neck and burying his face in Saïx’s shoulder. Saïx tasked his overworking cardiovascular system to calm itself as he wrapped his arms around Axel’s midsection, pressing lightly as Axel latched onto his frame. 

Axel shivered, gasping sharply through his teeth. “I can’t—” He choked on a sob, cutting himself short.

Saïx took a deep breath and began rubbing Axel’s back with one hand, using gentle up-and-down motions. The scents of Axel’s shampoo and body spray, a strange combination of cinnamon, citrus, and commodified masculinity, mixed into a heady draught in Saïx’s lungs, fogging his mind and undercutting his sense of reason. Saïx pulled Axel closer as he let out another sob. “It’s alright, it’s alright. You’re okay, right where you are. I promise.”

Saïx held Axel for a moment, until Axel’s breathing steadied and his own senses returned. As Saïx began to straighten his back and loosen his grip, Axel readjusted, his attempt to remain in full-body contact accompanied by a low whine. Saïx sighed and guided Axel to the couch, prompting Axel to take a seat with one hand on his upper back. “Here, I’ll go make some tea,” Saïx said, gently patting between Axel’s shoulderblades. “I’ll be right back.”

Saïx returned to the living room after a few minutes, a mismatched mug of steaming herbal tea in each hand, to find Axel folded in on himself, chin on his knees and red halos around his eyes and nose. He sniffled as he accepted one of the mugs, breathing in the steam before tasting the tea. “This is good. Better than whatever they brew at the coffee shop.”

“Isn’t it? It’s complex for an earthy blend,” Saïx said, as he settled into the couch next to Axel with his legs crossed underneath him. “The shop’s tea is more one-note.”

Axel hummed in response. “I don’t know what you’re saying, but I’m inclined to believe you,” he said, leaning his upper body against Saïx and resting his cheek on Saïx’s shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Saïx asked, glancing at Axel without turning his head.

Axel shrugged. “Just this.”

Saïx eyed Axel’s mug, tilted at an angle that threatened to spill tea onto the couch’s mostly-unstained upholstery. “Maybe watch how you’re handling your drink,” he said, pointing at the mug.

Tea sloshed in Axel’s mug as he righted himself, only to fall back onto cushions piled in the corner of the couch. “Ugh, _fine._ You’re such a prude.”

“Axel.” Saïx said, gripping his own mug with both hands and facing forward, “We both know that you’re just upset right now. Give yourself some space before you start throwing yourself at someone else.” Something in Saïx’s chest clenched at the bitter edge in his own words.

“What? Hey, man, don’t be like that.” Axel repositioned himself against the armrest, stretching his legs across Saïx’s lap. Once he saw that he had Saïx’s attention, given away by the curl of the lip that Saïx could not restrain, he stuck out his tongue and flexed his ankles. “You know you love me.” 

Saïx looked down at Axel’s legs, then refocused on the tea in his mug. Steam still escaped from the top, and the teabag bobbed as Saïx tugged on the string attached. “Don’t be so sure about that,” he said, willing the steam from his mug to camouflage the heat rising to the tips of his ears.

Axel slurped at his tea loudly enough to make the sound its own joke, a transparent jab at Saïx’s stoicism. “You’re always so hard-to-get, you know that?”

“I assure you that I am nothing of the sort.”

“Oh yes you _are,”_ Axel retorted, chuckling lightly. “Remember in middle school, when Ven put that Valentine’s card in your locker and you threw it away right in front of him?”

“I didn’t know he was standing right there. Who waits at the end of a hallway to watch someone else open a locker?” Saïx held himself ramrod-straight, lest his body language betray him again. “Besides, I thought it was a joke.”

“Then what about that time in high school with Terra? He literally asked you out in front of a huge crowd, and you shot him down with one of those ‘I would prefer not to’ old-timey phrases.”

“That was _absolutely_ a joke on Terra’s part, Axel.” Saïx prodded at Axel’s knees, making Axel’s legs twitch in response. “Why would a senior ask a sophomore on a date with that many witnesses? It doesn’t add up.”

Axel smirked. “I don’t know, man. Sounds like people might actually, y’know, _like_ you.”

“You are, as usual, vastly incorrect.” Saïx laughed, shorter and more nervously than he would have liked in hindsight.

“Am I?” Axel asked, placing his tea mug on the coffee table and scooting closer to Saïx. He snaked one arm around Saïx’s midsection, then the other. “If you’re so smart,” he said, staring directly at Saïx’s profile with an amused grin, “what exactly am I doing right now?”

Saïx let out a cough, gathering the pieces of himself that continued to scatter as Axel brought himself closer. “You’re… overcompensating,” he answered flatly. “You’re trying to prove your own likability to yourself.”

“Alright,” Axel purred, turning Saïx’s head with the side of his thumb. When Saïx met his eyes, Axel’s grin became more genuine. “I don’t think I’m the only one with that particular set of issues.”

Saïx’s diction fumbled as he lost track of the conversation, preoccupied with Axel drawing even closer with half-lidded eyes. “Y-you think?” he squeaked, almost inaudibly.

Axel’s grin widened, unabashed, his enthusiasm on full display. “Yeah. For sure.” His lips met Saïx’s with a measured intensity, parting and returning to each other as Saïx melted underneath him.

Saïx sucked in a breath as his body betrayed him, landing on his back as Axel worked his hands through Saïx’s hair and his teeth over Saïx’s lower lip. Saïx’s pulse raced as his inner dialogue screamed at him: _Don’t get sucked in. Don’t do this. You’ll regret it if you let it happen like this. Don’t—”_

“ _Stop,”_ Saïx gasped, sitting up straight as Axel’s hands reached the waistband of his jeans. Saïx glanced around the room as his panic subsided, his eyes catching on his shirt, which he did not remember discarding, rumpled on the floor by the coffee table. Saïx looked down his own chest to find Axel hovering above the undone clasp of his jeans, jaw open.

“Is... something wrong?” Axel asked, the certainty in his eyes wavering.

Saïx swallowed against a dry throat. He pulled his legs from under Axel’s weight. “I… think you’ve made your point,” he said, reaching for his shirt and redressing himself. He stumbled across the living room floor, barely able to stand upright, holding a fist to his mouth. “Good work,” he choked out, tears streaming down his face.

Saïx shut his bedroom door and collapsed to the floor, sitting with his back to the door and listening for sounds of anger from the living room. Instead, a stark, sterile silence enveloped the room, the apartment, the universe. He drew his knees into his chest, eyes squeezed shut and shoulders shaking with contained sobs. _Axel, I can’t. Axel, I’m sorry._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More AkuSai for the discerning reader, with a side of everyone-is-hurting to taste. :) All of the AkuSai chapters in this fic are Peak Angst, and I'm really excited to keep sharing them! I hope you're excited to read them, lol


	9. An Unsung Chorus

Sunlight streamed across Axel’s face, unrelenting in the early morning hour. He grumbled as he rolled to his side, pulled the covers over his head, and nestled further into their protection. Several minutes later, his clock radio sprang to life, its alarm beeping and buzzing on the nightstand. He found himself groaning to no one in particular, extricating himself from the nest of blankets to silence the alarm and face the exhausting ordeal of being alive.

He padded into the kitchen with a long, drawn-out yawn, his bare feet sticking to the tile. A cursory peek into the refrigerator revealed a half-full carton of orange juice, more than enough to fill the glass Axel had retrieved from the cabinet above the stove. He filled the glass halfway and recapped the orange juice, leaving the carton on the counter as he headed to the kitchen table. Grunting, he pulled himself into his usual stool at the edge of the table.

Axel set the glass next to a newly-composed sticky note stuck to the table’s surface: _Working a double shift today. Don’t wait up._ He picked up the note, read it, then crushed it in one hand. With a clarity uncharacteristic of the morning hours, he chucked the note into the kitchen wastebasket where others of its kind languished, some of them for a few days.

Axel finished the juice in one gulp, setting the empty glass aside and rubbing the fatigue from his eyes. Saïx had been AWOL for several days, ever since Axel had tried to move forward in their relationship and Saïx had backed out dramatically. Every morning afterward, Axel awoke to an empty apartment and a curt note: _Working today. Out today. Busy today. Don’t wait up._

Axel glanced at the clock on the oven display. He was scheduled for a short shift today, babysitting the electronics department from behind the circular desk between the phone accessories and video games. He sighed as he got to his feet, heading back to his bedroom to change into his work uniform. “Get through the day,” he reminded himself aloud, massaging a kink in his neck. “Get through the day and see what happens tonight.”

* * *

Axel returned home tired but not sleepy, a new video game wrapped in a plastic bag in one hand. As expected, Saïx was nowhere to be found in the apartment. He tossed the video game on the couch before half-consciously wandering around barren rooms, putting the forgotten orange juice carton back into the refrigerator in the kitchen and swapping his work uniform for sweatpants and a worn-out sweatshirt in his bedroom. 

After changing clothes, Axel popped the video game disc into his console and dropped into the least supportive cushion of the couch. His controller buzzed to life in his hand as the game loaded on the TV mounted on the wall. The title screen appeared with composed fanfare, the brass of the game’s main theme bristling against Axel’s weary ennui. He started a new game with a quick press of a button, readying himself to sit through an opening music video and a long tutorial before reaching the hack-slash gameplay the series had made its hallmark over its five-installation run.

Axel had spent hours level-grinding, exhausting the respawning monsters on three full maps, by the time he heard the front door click open and someone step inside. He continued to button-mash as he listened to Saïx lock the door and pocket his keys. “You’re home early.”

Saïx walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, wordless as he rummaged through the various cartons and sealed containers inside. Axel heard the sound of liquid pouring into a cup, then the twisting of a cap. “Axel. Why is the juice warm?”

“Oh, I left it out today.” Axel shrugged as he completed a combo attack, alternating loudly between two buttons. “Sorry.”

Saïx hissed through an exhale, then dumped the juice in the glass down the drain in the sink. “Maybe don’t put it back in the fridge if you leave it out too long.”

A video game enemy cried out as Axel delivered a one-hit knockout. “Sure, whatev _er._ ” He gritted his teeth on the final syllable.

“Was there something you wanted to say, Axel?”

Axel paused the game and turned to Saïx, who had braced himself against the kitchen peninsula and faced Axel with palms planted firmly against the countertop. “I could ask you the same thing. I’m not the one leaving passive-aggressive sticky notes at odd hours.”

Saïx’s posture stiffened, though his gaze fell to the space between his hands on the counter. “I needed space and didn’t want you to worry.”

“Space? Sure.” Axel refocused on the game. “You and everyone else, I guess.”

“What are you getting at?” Saïx sounded tense, strained.

Axel defeated the final monster of the area, a message affirming that he had cleared the map appearing on the screen. The victory theme rang hollowly from the TV speakers. “For the guy who’s always telling me what’s going on in my psyche, you sure don’t make outside connections all that well.”

A hush, like a chasm, stretched between them. “This isn’t about you, Axel. My thing.”

“No? Then what is it?” Axel maneuvered his avatar to a save point and exited to the game’s title screen. “From where I’m standing, it looks like something I did made you freak out and then avoid me for a ridiculous amount of time.”

“If that’s how you see it, why are you mad at me?” A gentle shifting accompanied Saïx’s question, the sound of cloth against countertop laminate.

Axel brought the controller back to its usual spot atop the console, sending it clattering back into place. He stared at the floor while a bitter taste welled up on his tongue. “I don’t know, because you’re my best friend and you should know better than to straight-up run away from your friend with abandonment issues? That sounds right to me.”

A second chasm opened, yawning wider than the first and with a steeper drop. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like—”

“Oh, spare me the academic apology,” Axel spat, glaring at Saïx. “I can’t take the ‘sorry’ shit anymore. Not from you, or anyone else.”

Saïx stayed motionless, save for a small tremble noticeable in his arms. His head hung at a perpendicular angle to his back. “What do you want me to say, Axel? Do you want the actual reason? Would you believe me if I told you? So far, you’ve been pretty resistant.”

Axel sauntered to the peninsula and mirrored Saïx’s stance, bracing his palms against the edge of the countertop while glowering at Saïx’s bowed head. “Try me. It better be a damn good reason.”

Saïx inhaled sharply, his chin set against his breastbone. “It’s… hard to say out loud.”

Axel rolled his eyes. “Dude, you know I love you, right? There isn’t much you could say that would change that.”

Saïx mumbled something under his breath, a clear bite in his delivery.

“Come again?” Axel leaned closer to Saïx, tilting his head to meet Saïx’s eyes. 

“You don’t love me, Axel.”

Axel choked on his own breath. “I’m sorry? Come _again?”_

Saïx’s knuckles paled as he gripped the edge of the countertop. “I—”

“Hold on—why is this an issue? What’s…” Axel trailed off as Saïx’s shoulders shuddered in the quiet, contained anxiety that Axel had come to recognize in Saïx over the years. His simmering anger cooling, he crept around the kitchen peninsula to rest a hand on Saïx’s. “Hey, come on, it’s okay. Talk to me.”

Saïx pulled away from Axel’s touch and locked himself tightly. Isolated tears travelled down his face, tiny rivulets streaking against soft marble.

Axel circled around the countertop to wrap his arms around Saïx’s waist, drawing him forward into a clasping bear hug. He rested the side of one cheek on Saïx’s shoulder and rocked from side to side, bringing Saïx into the rhythm. “Of course I love you,” he murmured. “What else would explain this?”

Saïx gasped, sniffling through a stuffed nose. “Part of me believes you. Another part knows that your habit of chasing strangers suggests otherwise.” 

Keeping his hold on Saïx firm, Axel pulled back to stare directly into Saïx’s eyes. “Listen. You say the word, and the chasing stops.” Axel thumped against Saïx’s chest with an open hand. “That’s a promise. You’re more important.”

Saïx sighed against Axel’s hand on his chest. “That’s not the whole story.” 

Both of Axel’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “No? What, did you cheat on me or something?” he asked, humor in his voice.

“No, it’s…” Saïx worried at his bottom lip, his eyes darting to the ground before looking back to Axel. “I’m not the one.”

“The one what? ’The one’ for me, you mean?” Axel burst into laughter, his head thrown back and teeth on full display. “Saïx, who else would be ‘the one?’ We’ve been joined at the hip since seventh grade. We all but fucked a few days ago. We live together, for Christ’s sake. If it’s anyone at all, it’s you.”

Saïx’s expression fell. “That’s… part of it.”

“What? The living together?”

“No, the sex. The almost-sex.”

Axel smirked. “Would you rather have actual-sex?”

Saïx blanched, jumping as he wrenched himself from Axel’s grasp. He clenched his fists and righted himself. “I—no. I’m not the one, Axel.”

Axel sat back on one hip, arms akimbo. “Are you telling me that you’re not attracted to me? _Because,_ and I mean this with all due respect, I’ve literally watched you thirst for me since your balls dropped.” 

Blood rose to Saïx’s neck and ears, casting his facial features as bleached in comparison.

“Not that I’ve ever minded, though. I’m pretty into it.” Axel stuck out his tongue and waggled it suggestively.

Saïx stood immobile, a confession hidden somewhere between his wide eyes and tight lips. He inhaled recklessly, and exhaled with control. “I’m not attracted to anyone, Axel.” It was a statement, a finality. 

Axel let out a less-than-friendly cackle. “Oh, please. Spare me the dramatics. Anyone with eyes can tell that—”

“I’m ace, Axel. I’m not attracted to anyone.”

A piercing silence sliced through the kitchen, across Saïx’s downcast gaze and into Axel’s heart. 

Axel cleared his throat amid the tension suffocating the room. “So, if that’s true, what’s the point of…” He wrinkled his nose as he set his thoughts in order. “What’s the point of all the hugging and stuff, or the talking me down at two in the morning, or anything? Why put in the effort?” He continued, gesticulating with one hand. “What’s the point of letting me make out with you, if you weren’t interested in the first place? Don’t tell me you were just being nice.”

Saïx shrank under Axel’s laser-focused disapproval. He swallowed before setting himself into a resolute stance. “I care about you, Axel. I want you to be happy.”

Axel’s eyes narrowed. “So you were going to lead me on for the rest of our lives?”

Saïx’s lower lip curled. “I don’t know. I didn’t think…”

“No, you didn’t.” Axel’s tone flattened, became gravelly. 

Saïx blinked, his facial expression resetting. “I didn’t think you’d reciprocate,” he said, his cadence stronger. “And even if you do, I’m not able to deliver the kind of relationship you’d want. The friend with abandonment issues is not going to take lightly to a partner who avoids sex.”

Axel dropped his head to one shoulder, his eyes fixed on Saïx. “Do you honestly think that would bother me? Honestly, truly? I haven’t had sex with any of the strangers I’ve ‘chased,’ as you put it, in years.”

“Axel, you woke me up in the middle of the night, hysterical, because someone didn’t kiss you back. Recently.” Saïx shook his head. “I don’t think you could handle it. Besides, I’m happy with our relationship as it is.”

Axel’s face twisted into a sneer. “You want to pine away while I pursue failing relationships when we could be together and avoid the drama instead? Who wins in that situation?”

“I’m not pining,” Saïx insisted. “I literally come home to you every day. You tell me everything without a second thought, and you take my advice when I offer it. We’re pretty much married.” His shoulders tensed, crawling toward his ears. “Besides, the only reason you’re considering me is because the others aren’t working out.”

“And what happens if one of the others _does_ work out? Are you really okay with me leaving for another relationship?” Axel challenged.

“Do you… _not_ want one of the others to work out?” Saïx asked, eyeing Axel from the side.

Axel opened his mouth to respond, but lost the words in his throat.

“Wait. Are you afraid of leaving me? Is that why none of the others have worked out? Have you been _sabotaging_ yourself without realizing it?” Saïx’s jaw dropped.

“Hey, wait—”

Saïx held up one hand, cutting off Axel’s interjection. He glanced at his feet, at the wall to his side, at Axel. The initial shock faded from his body language, replaced by a penetrating melancholy. “I had no idea I was holding you back.”

Axel crossed his arms and glared at the floor, lower lip slightly pouting. “You’re not. I think I would know if you were.”

“Would you?” Saïx gnawed at the inside of his cheek, muffling his enunciation. 

Axel watched Saïx’s feet as he rocked from his heels to his toes and back again, his breathing becoming more labored as the silence grew between them. Finally, Saïx broke into a run, pushing past Axel for the front door. “I need some air,” he croaked.

“Hey, wait! Saïx! Where are you—” Axel called out to Saïx, reaching for him as the front door slammed with Saïx on the other side. Axel shivered in the sudden chill descending on the apartment. 

Axel ran a hand through his hair, piecing apart some of the spikes as he scratched along his scalp. He checked the time on the digital clock embedded in the stovetop display: half past one in the morning. He took a deep breath and rubbed one eye, slumping forward as he resigned himself to another night home alone.

He shuffled to bed without bothering to change into pajamas, landing face-down on the mattress with one leg hanging over the edge. He sniffed back tears as sleep approached like a freight train on square wheels, heavily and slowly. “Just get through the night,” he mumbled, his face buried in his pillow. “Get through the night and see what happens tomorrow.”


	10. Unlikely Alibis

“Bye, Roxas! Thanks for coming with us!”

Naminé waved as Roxas broke away from the group standing in front of the concert club, offering his own half-attempted wave and walking to his car parked along a nearby side street. Roxas spared a glance backward before crossing the street—Naminé stood with Marluxia, both poised in fashionable peacoats, and Xigbar, brash in a cracked-and-studded leather jacket, while concertgoers milled around the building’s exit before dispersing into the night. His coworkers had invited him to attend the concert with them earlier that evening at work, after their fourth person bailed for reasons unknown. Xigbar had been particularly persuasive: “This show will blow your ears out, kid. It’ll definitely put some hair on your chest.”

Roxas yawned as he unlocked his car doors, the headlights flashing in the dark of the unlit side street. He slammed the door, turned the key, and adjusted the radio without conscious thought, the excitement of the post-hardcore show fading and the exhaustion of the night setting into his joints. He pulled onto the streetlight-lined main road and cruised at an easy pace, the only car on the road for a long stretch.

Before he realized where his handle on the steering wheel was taking him, Roxas sidled up to the drive-through window of the neighborhood Taco Bell on the way back from the club. The crackling voice emanating from the speaker brought him to his senses. “Hi, what can I get you tonight?” The person behind the voice sounded as tired as Roxas felt.

Roxas placed his order with a sigh, exasperated at his unconscious mind’s hijacking of his trip home. He inched toward the pickup window when instructed by the disembodied drive-through voice, handed his credit card to the haggard-looking college student at the window, and accepted the bag of cheap burritos with a courteous nod.

Roxas idled at the edge of the restaurant’s parking lot, blinking rapidly to gather his scattered thoughts. He shook away some of the fogginess and set out again, more slowly, as he reached for a taco from the bag.

Roxas puttered with the radio blaring late-night remixes of pop songs and nibbled on an partly-unwrapped soft taco as he continued home, coming to a stop at a red light in a deserted intersection under a pair of streetlights. He turned down the radio as a pedestrian walked up to the crosswalk, took a quick look at Roxas’s car, and hurried into the street. From Roxas’s position, the darkened features of the person’s frame gave the impression of Saïx, the barista from the coffee shop.

“Saïx?” Roxas asked, rolling down his window. “Hey, Saïx?”

The pedestrian stopped walking, glanced at the car, and bolted to the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

Roxas sat at the intersection until the light turned green, then rolled up his window. “Must not have been him,” he said to himself, turning the radio back on. “Weird that anyone’s out walking this late.” He inched forward through the intersection. Just a trick of the light, probably. 

* * *

Roxas reclined in his swivel chair, sipping from a foam cup of break-room coffee as he watched Xigbar work his magic. In a passing thought, he noticed that Xigbar had traded his leather jacket for an argyle sweater and a collared shirt for the workday, somehow rendering himself more intimidating in the process. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s library policy.”

The woman standing on the other side of the information desk huffed, tossing a battered hardcover book onto the desk. The wire frames of her oval glasses glinted in the library’s fluorescent lighting. “I just don’t think this is appropriate for the teen section. It’s an adult book.”

Xigbar picked up the hardcover and held it sideways, tapping on the YA sticker at the base of the book’s spine with one finger. “Our cataloging department feels otherwise,” he said, shrugging. “There’s not much us little guys on the floor can do about it.”

The woman’s face reddened as her cheeks puffed outward. “Sir, I understand that, but _you_ have to understand that I have two teenagers at home who are _not_ ready to read this kind of material, and I know that I’m not the only mother in this position.”

Xigbar folded his hands under his chin, faking an attentive gesture. “It’s out of my hands, ma’am. If you’d like, you could call our administrative office and submit a complaint. There’s a five-business-day turnaround.”

The woman flinched and grew redder, shoving the hardcover book at Xigbar across the desk. “I’ll be sure to include your name in my complaint, sir.”

“It’s Xigbar, ma’am,” he drawled, waving as the woman skulked away. “Please do tell them about how I did my job. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.”

Roxas stifled the impulse to balk at Xigbar’s impropriety with a hand over his mouth. “Wait, can you dothat? Can you talk to people like that?” he asked, once the woman had left through the double-doors of the front entrance.

Xigbar snickered from his post, fussing at his computer in a transparent attempt to appear industrious. “That lady comes in every few weeks complaining about something or another. Marluxia got tired of dealing with her, so I stepped up.” A smirk spread across his face. “Putting entitled patrons in their place is one of the few perks of this job.”

Roxas collected himself and wheeled closer to his own computer workstation. “What was she complaining about this time?” 

“Oh, something about something or other in this book,” he said, holding up the novel for Roxas to see. “I’m not sure what she was objecting to, though. I haven’t read this one.”

Roxas glanced at the book in his peripheral vision. He instantly recognized it. “Oh, that’s the newest book from that one supernatural torture trilogy, where the main girl uses the demon possessing her to exorcise demons in other people. I think that one has the scene where she rips teeth from one of her classmates’ mouths with a kitchen knife.” He chuckled under his breath. “That lady may have had a point. The imagery might be a little much for anyone who’s not ready for it.”

Xigbar slid the book over to Roxas, who caught it right before it crashed into his computer’s keyboard. “Not my division. I just make sure the information’s available. I can’t be held responsible for how people react to it. Or what they do with it, for that matter. At any rate, cataloging has spoken. I am merely a pawn for enacting their grand plan.” Xigbar held out his palms, indicating the main library floor.

Roxas rolled his eyes, placing the book at the edge of the information desk for reshelving. “Far be it from me to keep you from your divine mission.”

Xigbar responded with an unimpeded laugh. “What can I say? I took an oath.” He splayed his fingers across his keyboard, smashed the keys a few times, then deleted the resulting nonsense with a few clicks. “To be honest, this place is dull as dirt when the difficult patrons aren’t trying to start fights.”

Roxas scanned the library floor, taking note of the single patron lingering in the fiction bookstacks and stuffing mismatched novels into a canvas tote bag. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“What are you doing after this?” Xigbar laced his fingers behind his head, leaning as far back as his chair would allow.

Roxas raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know, probably just going home.” He turned from his computer monitor to face Xigbar. “Why? Did you have something?”

Xigbar bobbed his head side-to-side against the headrest of his chair. “Naminé, Marluxia, and I were all going to meet at the coffee shop after I got off work tonight. It’s the place’s Open Mic Night. Should be fun.”

The mention of the Open Mic Night sent Roxas’s stomach churning. “I don’t… um, can I ask why you’re inviting me?” 

“What, can’t I be friendly?” Xigbar turned up his nose. “I mean, you don’t have to. Don’t let me be the one to force you.”

The churning stopped, leaving embarrassment in its absence. Roxas put his hands on the desk, pressing his palms into the laminate. “Sorry, I’ve been on edge lately. Sure, I’d love to meet you guys there. Thank you for inviting me.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. And don’t hurt your feet with all that backpedaling, either,” Xigbar jeered, looking back at Roxas from under his eyelids. “I was going to go straight there after work. Need a lift?”

“My car’s in the staff lot out back. I should probably move it.” Roxas prayed that his excuse would satisfy Xigbar enough to deter further questioning. _I need to collect myself before I head back into where Axel could be and where Saïx probably is._

Xigbar responded with a dry breath, sounding more exasperated than angry. “Sure, okay. Suit yourself.”

The remainder of the night passed without incident and without conversation. Roxas parted ways with Xigbar at the door and hurried to his car to shoot Sora a quick text before heading to the coffee shop: _going out with coworkers to the place i met axel. if i dont text back by tomorrow at 7am, call the police_

The notification for Sora’s response dropped from the top status bar of Roxas’s phone screen before he could exit the texting app. _Aye aye, captain!_ Thumbs-up emoji, pirate emoji.

By the time Roxas found a parking spot on the street, parallel-parked into that spot, and walked to the front of the shop, Naminé, Marluxia, and Xigbar had situated themselves at a table near the makeshift stage. Roxas passed by the counter with a sideways glance, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up as he recognized the top of Saïx’s head tending to an esoteric coffee-making machine behind the cash register. He made a beeline for his coworkers’ table, slotting himself into the last available seat too forcefully to be casual.

Naminé’s smile brightened as Roxas pulled his chair closer to the table. “Roxas! You made it!” She laid a hand on his forearm, warm but not cloying.

Xigbar jutted his chin in Roxas’s direction. “Long time no see,” he teased, teeth flashing. He nudged Marluxia with his elbow. “Mar, look who’s here.”

Marluxia’s eyes flicked up from his phone screen, then back. “Hello, Roxas.” His hair flipped away from his shoulders, free from its usual tight bun, and the black t-shirt he wore came into sharp contrast with Roxas’s mental image of his boss, adorned in his usual work attire of pressed button-down shirts and dress slacks. “So glad you could join us.”

“Come on, don’t be like that,” Xigbar said, pushing his elbow farther into Marluxia’s upper arm. “Roxas is fun, remember? He completely decimated that fascist in the pit the other night.”

Roxas sunk into the back of his chair. He remembered the person throwing up hate signs and chanting in slurs, and he remembered tightening a fist and rushing at the person, but the rest of the encounter blurred into a haze. His next clear memory was being pulled out of the mosh pit by a hulking security guard, kicking and thrashing as if caught in hand-to-hand combat. “I, uh, didn’t want you guys to see that.”

Xigbar cocked his head to the side. “Why not? Don’t want people to know you’re secretly a badass?”

“I didn’t want my bosses to see me beat someone up, no.”

Marluxia waved his hand laterally, dismissive, and attended to his phone screen. “Violence may be the rule of beasts, but Man is as much beast as anything else. You should have seen some of the things Xigbar did in front of me when I first hired him.”

Xigbar grinned. “One time, I almost cussed out a patron after they complained about the existence of ebooks. It’s one of my finer moments.”

“It was an HR nightmare,” Marluxia corrected, looking up from his phone and pinching the bridge of his nose. “There isn’t a day on this green earth that I don’t thank every deity I can think of that you developed a less abrasive way of dealing with library patrons.”

“Learned from the best,” Xigbar replied, giving an exaggerated wink in Naminé’s direction.

Naminé placed one hand over her heart and returned Xigbar’s wink. “Thank you, I try.”

As the conversation at the table continued, Roxas squirmed in his seat, shooting quick glances at the checkout counter. He tracked Saïx as he wove around and between the various machines set against the back wall, never once stopping to take or deliver orders. Roxas startled as Saïx turned around, quickly refocusing to stare out of the window nearest to his group’s table.

Xigbar was the first to notice Roxas’s jumpiness. “Hey, Earth to Roxas. Something up, kid?” he asked, propping one cheek on his knuckles.

“Do you want to order anything?” Naminé pointed at the checkout counter behind her. “The coffee here is really good.”

Marluxia placed his phone face-down on the table. “We haven’t placed our orders yet, either. Roxas, would you do the honors?” He clasped his hands on the edge of the table, leveling his gaze at Roxas.

Roxas’s shoulders tensed under Marluxia’s force of will. “…You want me to order for you?”

“No, but I would ask you to place our orders when you go up to the counter. The drinks will come out at the same time that way.” Marluxia’s expression remained neutral and impossibly relaxed as he spoke. 

Assenting, Roxas swallowed his nerves. “Okay, uh. What did you guys want?”

“Cold brew with a caramel shot.” Marluxia’s gaze never wavered from Roxas.

“An Americano, black like my soul.” Xigbar chortled at the joke.

“A triple-shot espresso, with two packets of powdered caffeine stirred in.”

Roxas gaped at Naminé in disbelief. She giggled at him, unperturbed. “I mighthave built up a caffeine tolerance in grad school. Just a little.”

Roxas repeated the orders one by one, pointing to each person as he recounted the drink they had requested. He made a break for the counter before he could forget anything, repeating the orders under his breath and silently hoping that one of the other baristas would take pity on him and piece together his colleagues’ orders from his jumbling.

“Hello, Roxas. Welcome back.”

Roxas snapped to attention at the sound of Saïx’s voice, finding himself standing directly in front of Saïx across the counter. “H-hi,” he stammered, grasping for a semblance of decorum as his mind shut down. “How’s it going?”

Something subdued in Saïx twitched. “It’s going. You seem more awake today.”

“It’s night.” Roxas squinted. “Oh! You mean from last time. I was running on zero sleep that time. I’ve got at least two sleeps in me tonight.”

Saïx’s customer-service smile eased into a genuine grin as he braced himself against the back of the counter. “That’s good to hear. What can I get you tonight?”

Roxas repeated the orders verbatim, reciting the drinks rhythmically. “They’re for my friends,” he explained, chattering with a manic, anxious energy. “They’re why I’m here.”

Saïx nodded. “That’s nice of you. Did you want anything for yourself?”

“Thanks, but I don’t think it’s wise to order food from someone with a vested interest in tampering with it,” Roxas replied, his chest shaking. _I wonder if he remembers the other night._ “You understand.”

Saïx entered the drink orders into the register without looking at Roxas. “Suit yourself, though you should know that I’m much too professional to let the personal squabbles of my roommate affect my work.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you on your own word alone,” Roxas said.

“Of course.” Saïx tapped a button on the cash register, eliciting a small beep. “Was that all for you today?”

“Yes. Wait, no. Actually, no,” he said, his curiosity bursting through the wall of anxiety separating him from his ability to speak clearly. “Were you out walking in the middle of the night a few days ago? I think I saw you.”

Something in Saïx’s persona faltered, cracking and hardening. “That’s an odd question,” he said. 

“I called your name, and I think you saw me, but you ran away.” Roxas shifted his weight into his opposite hip. “Not that I can really blame you, though. I probably wouldn’t stick around if a stranger in a car tried to get my attention at one o’clock in the morning.”

Saïx returned his attention to the cash register, which had begun beeping erratically. “Who can say, really. The world is full of mysteries. Your drinks will be out to you shortly.” 

Roxas stepped back to leave the counter but stopped when he noticed a pallor in Saïx’s complexion that highlighted deep bags under his eyes, newly visible from under his weakened workplace facade. “Hey, are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

Saïx walked over to one of the coffee machines lined up in a row along the back wall. “I have never been better in my life, sir,” he yelled, over the sounds of the machine heating and dispensing various liquids. “Please enjoy your drinks.”

A twinge of sympathy gnawed at Roxas as he watched Saïx work, bearing a tightness that Roxas recognized from the aftermath of his own mistakes. The sight of Saïx jittering around the coffee machinery, spilling drops of coffee and steamed milk as his hands rebelled against what looked to be standard coffee-making procedure, became too much for Roxas to bear. He returned to his colleagues’ table with an uneasy knot growing in his stomach.

“Something wrong? You look like something’s eating you.” Xigbar sat with his legs crossed at the knee, one arm slung over the back of his chair.

“Did you manage to put in our orders?” Marluxia swiped along his phone screen, his mouth pressed into a thin line as he scrolled.

Roxas glanced over at the counter, where Saïx was hunched over behind the counter, making drinks and keeping busy. He bit his lip and rested his elbows on the table. “The orders are in. The guy said they’d be out in a bit.”

Naminé twisted in her chair to examine the barista behind the counter. “Do you know him?” she asked, placing a hand on Roxas’s wrist.

Roxas drew his arm away and carefully appraised his response before replying. “Maybe? We’ve met before. He works here.”

“Oh? Not on good terms with that one?” Xigbar pulled himself forward in his chair, cueing Roxas to share the gossip.

Roxas massaged his cheeks with the palms of his hands. “Not exactly. I think we have some similar issues.”

“Is that all? We all have issues. I doubt it’s something to worry about,” Xigbar said, scoffing lightly and falling against the back of his chair with his arms crossed. 

Roxas sighed into his hands as the first Open Mic act occupied the stage with a homely ukulele cover of a Top 40 folk-rock song. “I hope you’re right.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the library crew! The choice of characters is a little strange for a group, but I like their dynamic _so much,_ guys.
> 
> This chapter marks the the last update for February. After this, there will be two more updates for the Rogue Nebula event, reaching the halfway point of this fic. I'll be taking a short hiatus from updating after the event ends to edit and clean up the rest of the chapters (they're written, I promise, they just need some TLC!). Thanks for hanging on with me for this long! Catharsis is coming. :)


	11. Unlikely Al(lies) Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the unnamed novel featured in this chapter is inspired by an existing series of books. Further information is linked in the end notes for the curious. (I can’t take credit for that particular set of ideas.)
> 
> Also, this chapter is one of my favorites. :)

Saïx clocked out at the antiquated punch-card mechanism in the back room with his apron draped over his arm, then stooped to retrieve his keys and wallet from his locker-cubby behind the coat rack. He let himself out the back door without locking up—Zexion, though several years less wise and several months less experienced as a barista, could be trusted to close the shop without supervision. Hooking his keyring around the first knuckle of his index finger, Saïx walked along the main road, following the line of streetlights to his apartment complex.

Saïx clutched his keys as he neared the apartment, the teeth pressing zigzags into his palms. Possible scenarios raced through his mind: Axel glued to the TV as he played another hack-slash video game, Axel waiting at the kitchen table with a glass of spiked orange juice or several empty bottles of beer, Axel already in bed and snoring loudly from behind a closed door. Each one inspired a different pervasive nausea deep in Saïx’s stomach. 

Saïx opened the front door slowly, peeking inside before swinging the door wide enough to enter. A table lamp had been left turned on next to the couch, but the game controllers rested neatly on top of Axel’s game system. The kitchen table boasted a grand total of zero used glasses or empty bottles. Saïx heard faint snoring, emanating from Axel’s side of the bedroom hallway. He let out the breath he had been holding—the coast was clear, for the moment.

He left his keys in the bowl by the door and threw his apron over the back of one of the kitchen barstools, taking a clean glass from the cabinet and filling it halfway with cheap vodka. He filled the remainder of the glass with the remnants of a two-liter bottle of store-brand cola, forgotten after the last apartment movie night over a week prior. Saïx swirled the drink in its glass, inhaling the strong scent of alcohol as it wafted into the air. 

Nights had been like this since the falling-out. Saïx had made a habit of returning late, well after Axel’s meaner faculties had left for the night, and sequestering himself in the dark, isolated corners of witching hours. The cumulative heaviness of consecutive double-shifts kept sleep at bay, kept Saïx too tired to do much of anything.

He sipped his mixer carefully, suffering through the vodka’s bitterness under the cola’s saccharine body. In a few minutes, he knew, his head would spin enough to guide him to bed and coax him into losing consciousness for a few hours before the early alarm sounded for his opening shift the next day.

Saïx crinkled his nose at the thought of his next workday, a single shift ending at two in the afternoon. Axel would likely be home by four o’clock, if he worked his normal Target hours, though Saïx had not asked about Axel’s current work schedule since the initial fight. He thought about taking his chances and coming home after work in the hope that Axel would be working late, but cringed at the idea.

The vodka hit Saïx all at once, causing the floor to wobble under his feet and his center of gravity to tip sideways. He placed his glass, only half-finished, in the kitchen sink, and shuffled to his bedroom, the low light of the table lamp casting long shadows that threatened to nip at his heels. He kicked off his shoes in the corner of the room before folding himself into his sheets, eschewing proper pajamas in favor of his coffee-stained work clothes. He could deal with the stench in the morning.

* * *

“Hey, are you okay? You seem a little… wilted.”

Saïx felt his entire body twitch in response. He faced away from Zexion as he replaced a filter in one of the more complicated coffee machines behind the counter. “Just working. You know how it is.”

Saïx could almost hear Zexion’s expression change—a tightening of the jaw, defiance in his posture. “Did you sleep last night, perchance? You were here pretty late.”

“You were here later,” Saïx fired back, clunking closed the filter compartment of the machine. “And here we both are, bright and early. Isn’t it ironic.”

“I suppose it is.” Zexion stepped up to the cash register and began pressing buttons, typing in the startup code and testing the register’s drawer. “I won’t cover for any mistakes driven by sleep deprivation.”

“Wouldn’t dream of asking for it.” Saïx moved on to the next coffee machine, popping open its filter hatch. “At least I’m not on register. I wouldn’t want to make any arithmetical miscalculations with the till funds.”

Zexion responded with silence.

Saïx spent his shift brewing and mixing custom drink orders behind the counter, the majority of which lacked an understanding of flavor palettes but emphasized the importance of personal choice. When the clock on the cash register display hit 1:59 pm, he ducked into the back room, narrowly avoiding the two o’clock regular who habitually recited complicated drink requests out of logical order waiting in the queue.

Saïx held up one hand as he blinked into the midday sun, keys clinking against his wrist. Where to go, what to do? Anywhere but home, anything but talk.

He settled on the nearest city park, a patch of grass with a few benches lined around a man-made pond in the opposite direction of his apartment. His feet led him to a bench, its wood bleached by constant sunlight, situated a few feet from the water. Saïx let out a sigh as he slid into the seat, turning away from the sunlight reflecting on the pond. 

He closed his eyes and breathed, fully and deeply, for the first time in days. The ambient sounds of the wind in the trees behind the benches and the splashing of the ducks paddling across the pond lulled him into a comfortable numbness. The sharp scent of pond scum and tree pollen cut through the din of overlapping thoughts, shooing away the nagging restlessness and uncertainty that had taken residence in his life in the past week. Saïx sunk into the wooden slats of the bench seat, free from himself for a brief, wonderful moment.

“Saïx? Is that you?”

In an instant, Saïx’s peace evaporated. “It is,” he grumbled, opening one eye to identify the voice. He saw a blurred Roxas, t-shirt clad with a messenger bag strung across one shoulder. “To what do I owe the honor?”

Roxas slipped a thumb under the strap of his bag. “I’m out on some adventures. Mind if I join you?”

Saïx squeezed his eyes shut. “If you must.”

The wooden seat swayed when Roxas lowered himself onto the opposite end of the bench, leaving a wide berth between them. Roxas’s bag scraped across the ground as he stowed it under the seat. “It’s a nice day out, yeah?” he asked, after a beat.

“Yes.”

Another pause. “This is a nice park. I haven’t been here before.” 

Saïx answered with his eyes still closed. “Yes, it is.”

Roxas hummed in affirmation, then sat quietly on the edge of the bench seat while the ducks on the pond quacked and flapped their wings against the water. Saïx heard a slight shuffling as Roxas rummaged through his bag, retrieved something, and sat back in the seat. 

Saïx snuck a glance from under one eyelid to find Roxas lounging with his back against the bench, a small but thick paperback in his hands. He watched Roxas flip through several pages in under a minute, as though obtaining the contents of the book through osmosis. If Roxas noticed Saïx staring, he gave no indication. “What are you reading?” he asked on a whim.

Roxas jerked at the sudden question, the book dropping from his hands to his lap. “What? Oh, it’s just something I picked up the other day at Target. It had an interesting cover.”

“Does it have an interesting plot to go with it?” Saïx leaned forward in his seat to better inspect the book.

“Absolutely not. I’ve never read anything that made less sense than this,” Roxas said. He bit his lip and considered the open page in his lap. “Actually, that’s an exaggeration, but it’s definitely not that great.”

Saïx warmed at the sentiment. “I’ve definitely read a few titles like that in my day.”

“Tell me about it. I got sucked in by effective marketing and all I got was… whatever’s happening in here.” Roxas held up the book and gestured to its cover, a pointed finger circling the title printed in large blocky letters. “It’s deception at its finest.”

“Why are you still reading it?” Saïx pushed himself to sit upright, drawing his feet under the bench seat.

Roxas stuck his bookmark, a trading card from a long-outdated licensed card game, into the book and packed it in his bag. “I can’t leave a book unread. Even if the book is stupid and boring.”

“Oh? I’m sensing some hostility.”

Roxas placed a hand on his chest. “Who, me? No, never. You got the wrong guy.”

Saïx suppressed the urge to smirk, crossing his arms and reclining against the back of the bench seat instead. “I’m sensing some denial, too.”

“Sure, okay, whatever,” Roxas replied, his arms and hands gesticulating wildly before calming down. “What about you? Read anything good lately? Or bad, as the case may be?”

Saïx’s legs moved to cross at the knee, to mirror his arms but contradict his mood. “I’ve read some things that I liked, but not much that other people would fully appreciate.”

Roxas bobbed his head to the side with a half-grin, nudging Saïx with his elbow. “Yeah, Axel mentioned that you were into capital-L Literature. Come on, try me. I might surprise you.”

“Well, if you insist,” Saïx droned, his vowels extending out a bit farther than absolutely necessary. “I read a collection of Oscar Wilde’s short stories not too long ago. Of all the Victorian authors, he’s the most entertaining. I also finished _Wuthering Heights_ for the first time not too long ago. I nearly fell asleep every time I sat down to read it.” In his excitement, Saïx almost laughed at the confession. 

“That’s dedication,” Roxas said, tucking one foot under the opposite knee. “I definitely read _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ at some point in undergrad, but that’s pretty much the farthest I got into Victorian literature without a class syllabus. I did read _The Time Machine_ in fifth grade because I thought it sounded cool, though.”

“Time machines are cool?” Saïx asked. His smirk escaped from its restraints.

Roxas nodded emphatically. “Oh, definitely. Time machines, space travel machines, monster creation machines, all very cool and totally relevant to real life.”

Saïx scoffed at Roxas’s enthusiasm, if only to keep his own amusement as far below the surface as possible. “Monster creation machines? As in _Frankenstein?”_

“Sure? I was actually thinking of the monster creation machine inRocky Horror, but I’m now realizing that example is neither Victorian nor a book.” Roxas let out a low whistle, ruffling at the cowlicks at the nape of his neck. “Wow, that’s embarrassing. Forget that happened.”

Saïx’s expression grew darker as the impulse to laugh out loud wrestled with his equilibrium. “Absolutely not. I will forever remember when a relative stranger misremembered the _Rocky Horror Picture Show_ as a Victorian novel.”

Roxas held up his palms in sign of backing off. “Hey, in my defense, I’m ninety percent sure the mad scientist in Rocky Horror is based in concept on our boy Victor Frankenstein.”

“At any rate, they have a similar flair for the dramatic,” Saïx mused, pursing his lips. “I’ve always pictured Victor Frankenstein in heels and a feather boa as he traipsed around Europe trying to avoid the consequences of tampering with death.”

Roxas’s face lit up in increments as Saïx’s joke landed, punctuated by rustling leaves and bird calls. He pointed both of his index fingers at Saïx. “I like the way you think.”

Saïx tossed his hair over one shoulder. “Thank you. I like the way you pronounce my name the right way only after I correct you.”

“That was over a week ago, my dude. Besides, I got it right after one correction. That’s a pretty good success rate.” Roxas pulled his bag from under the bench and plopped it into the empty space on the seat. He adjusted the length of the strap before slinging the bag over one shoulder. “Alas, my adventure awaits. I must answer its call,” he said, getting to his feet.

“Adventure? What are you talking about?” Saïx noticed his spirit falling as he saw Roxas get up to leave.

Roxas rocked back onto his heels, sheepish. “I’m being facetious. I’m out exploring the city instead of staying inside on my day off, which makes an ‘adventure.’ It’s… kind of stupid.”

“Perhaps, but not wholly incorrect,” Saïx replied as he stood. “Are you in need of an adventuring guide?”

Roxas raised an eyebrow. “I might be. Did you have something in mind?”

* * *

Saïx led the way out of the park and onto the busy sidewalks, weaving through crosswalks and alleys to arrive at an ivied brick storefront. Striped flags of varying color schemes draped from flagpoles lined along the top of the wall, and signs written in rainbow lettering proclaiming inclusion and safety hung in the front windows. “This is the place,” Saïx said. “Have you been here?”

Roxas angled himself toward the roof of the building, gaping at the line of flags. “Nope, first time. I haven’t been much of anywhere, to be honest. New in town.”

Saïx gave a curt affirmative ‘ah’ as he reached for the knob on the wooden door. Bells tacked to the inside of the door jingled as it swung open. “After you, then.”

He followed Roxas into the shop, his senses immediately flooded with the scent of yellowing paper and the sight of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves arranged along the walls and in neat, symmetrical aisles. Roxas took a deep breath, staring at the top of one bookshelf in awe. “This is… overwhelming.”

Saïx stepped past Roxas, guiding the way down the bookstore’s main aisle with his arms at his sides. “It’s the best queer bookstore I’ve found. They have a genre fiction section bigger than the mystery section at Barnes and Noble.”

Roxas’s forehead creased. “I’ll believe that when I see it. My hopes have been dashed _way_ too many times to take any statement about queer genre fiction at face value.”

“Come see for yourself, then.” Saïx cast a sideways glance over his shoulder at Roxas before serpentining through the store’s bookstacks on light footsteps. He heard the catching of Roxas’s breath as he hurried behind, evidently eager to test Saïx’s claim.

Saïx stopped in his tracks as he reached the back corner of the bookstore, causing Roxas, who _clearly_ was not paying attention, to bump into the back of his arm. Saïx suppressed a sneer and instead gestured with his whole arm at the entirety of the back wall, composed of full floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. “Behold, genre fiction.”

Roxas sat back into one hip and crossed his arms. “Is this all the genres of ‘genre fiction?’ It’s not that impressive. My library branch has a bigger—”

“It’s just the speculative fiction,” Saïx interrupted, petulance creeping into his voice. “The mystery section is over there—” he pointed to a line of bookshelves along the adjacent wall “—and the historical fiction is filed in the second aisle to our left. The romance fiction is… well, everywhere. Most of the fiction here has a romantic bent.” He waved one hand in a circular motion.

Roxas bit at the inside of his cheek, giving the impression of having one sunken cheekbone. “That’s… about par for the course,” he said, turning to scan the shelves on the back wall. He lifted himself onto the balls of his feet to reach a thick tome on one of the higher shelves, pulling at the top of the spine before plucking it from its perch in a tight line of paperbacks. Roxas scanned the cover and turned the book over, flipping through the pages from back-to-front. “Hey, I remember this one. I read this series in high school.”

Saïx sidled next to Roxas, craning his neck to read the titled running head on the even-numbered pages. “Was this volume any good?”

From his position, Saïx saw Roxas’s expression cloud with something too bitter to be nostalgia. “It was… formative, I guess. I learned a lot about myself as I read these books.” He stood on his toes to put the book back into its place on the shelf, straining to fit it back between the unyielding lines of paperback books on either side.

“What are they about?” Saïx pulled back one of the lines of paperbacks, letting Roxas replace the offending volume with ease.

Once the novel was back in place, Roxas landed on his heels, chuckling to himself. “Not much, really. Just this post-apocalyptic world with a new superhuman race of really pretty men. They know magic and they make their medicines by having sex with each other.” His mouth set into a tight line. “There’s more to it than that, but the details are pretty fuzzy.”

“I take it you didn’t like them?” Saïx asked, studying the spine of the book with a newfound curiosity.

Roxas shoved his hands in his pockets, a small groan burbling in the back of his throat. “Not in the slightest. They were kind of the worst.”

Saïx turned to Roxas. “But you read them all?”

“Well, yeah. I can’t just _not_ finish a series. Even if it objectively sucks.”

Saïx winced, drawing his head back. “That’s a strong statement.”

Roxas repositioned the strap of his bag, a smugness evident in the set of his shoulders. “It’s a correct statement. I stand by it.”

Saïx took a step to the side, mimicking Roxas’s hands-in-pockets stance. “Are you upset because you didn’t like the books themselves, or are you upset because you didn’t like what you found out about yourself as you read them?”

Roxas’s jaw dropped open. “Damn, okay. Going for the jugular right off the bat.” He lolled his head to the side, and his gaze fell to the bookshelves lining the back wall. “The first one, mostly. I’m okay with myself now.”

“You weren’t before?”

Roxas sighed, lowering his chin to his chest. “Jesus, Saïx, we just met. I’m not going to tell you my life story just because you showed me an admittedly-impressive indie bookstore.”

Saïx released the balled fists in his pockets. “That’s fair. I’m sorry for prying.”

“Are you backing off because I complimented your bookstore?” Roxas asked, a half-smile appearing on his face.

Saïx tightened his fists again. “Are you complimenting my bookstore so I’ll back off?”

Roxas’s half-smile spread into a grin. “What if I was?”

“I would be rather dissatisfied with you.”

“Dissatisfied enough to prevent me from coming here in the first place? Say, with a time machine?”

“Roxas, do not toy with me.”

Roxas held up both hands palm-out. “Okay, okay, sorry,” he soothed, pulsing his hands in the air. He nodded his head in the direction of the back wall’s bookshelf. “You want to check out that book? You might like it. A lot of people do.”

Saïx cast a passing glance at the novel’s spine, bearing its title in a red sans-serif font. “I might be more interested in finding out what you didn’t like about it.” He retrieved the book without needing to extend past his usual reach, then turned it over to read the synopsis on the back cover. “To what does ‘a moody, sexual romp through the recesses of the imagination’ refer, exactly?”

Roxas pivoted on one heel and began to saunter toward the front of the store, feet scuffing at the carpet as he walked. “I can’t tell you that! It’ll spoil the book.” With a start, he froze in place and whirled back to Saïx. “You’re not a spoiler person, are you?”

Tucking the book under one arm, Saïx trailed behind Roxas to the checkout counter. “Would it matter if I was?”

“Oh, absolutely. I don’t fuck with spoiler people. They have zero boundaries.” Roxas gritted his teeth while he brandished one shaking fist. “No _respect_ for the sanctity of a surprise ending.”

Saïx filed into the checkout line, with Roxas karate-chopping the space beside him as he spoke. “What kind of person purposely ruins the efficacy of a good plot twist? I mean, you do you, but like. Let other people enjoy things the right way, okay? It’s not hard to keep your mouth shut. I—”

Amused, Saïx tapped the spine of the book against Roxas’s forehead, cutting Roxas’s tirade short. “For a person of such small stature, you seem to have quite big emotions.”

Roxas pushed the book aside. “I’ll have you know that I have regular-sized emotions crammed into a smaller body, thank you very much. They just look bigger because I’m short.”

“Short and full of rage,” Saïx said, stepping up to the checkout counter and handing the book to the cashier.

“Is there any other way to be? Tall and numb? That sounds awful,” Roxas said.

Saïx handed a twenty-dollar bill to the cashier and received the book and several coins in exchange. “I’ll have youknow that I have standard-sized emotions diffused in a larger container. They seem mellow because they have more room to spread out.”

“Well. How nice for you.” 

“It _is_ pretty nice, actually,” Saïx replied, flashing the book in front of Roxas with a rotating wrist. “What’s more is that in a few hours, I will know all of your secrets.”

The color drained from Roxas’s face. “Oh? Are you sure you want the weight of that knowledge?” he asked, the sarcasm in his voice cracking.

“I will accept it with a heavy heart,” Saïx said, holding the book to his chest in a swooning motion.

By following the changes in Roxas’s posture and facial expressions, Saïx watched Roxas travel through several stages of disbelief, each deeper than the last, before settling in a vague confusion. “You’re fucking with me. You’re probably not even going to read that book.”

Saïx gasped, pressing the book over his heart. “Roxas! How dare you! I’ve never left a book unread after buying a copy.”

“Okay, now I _know_ you’re fucking with me,” Roxas said with a snort. “I’ve never met a book-buying person who didn’t have at least five unread books on their shelves at any given time.”

“Do you want me to prove it?”

Roxas blinked. “Prove it?”

Saïx fished his phone from his back pocket and handed it to Roxas, perfectly serious. “Yes. Here, put your number in. I’ll send you updates as I read it.”

Roxas accepted the phone but stared blankly at its screen. “You want to… liveblog it, to me specifically? That’s suspicious. What’s your angle?”

“My angle is that my pride is on the line.” Saïx clutched at the book held on his chest. “Besides, what could I possibly do? Axel already has your number, and I don’t have much else to threaten.”

Roxas paused for a moment, worrying at his bottom lip, before assenting. He tapped his information onto the screen with both thumbs, then handed the phone back to Saïx. “Just don’t send me stupid stuff, okay? I don’t need any more memes. I have too many.”

“Agreed.” Saïx pressed the ‘save contact’ button in the top-left corner, then repocketed his phone. “Literature-related messages only.”

“Sounds good.” Roxas hooked one thumb under the strap of his bag, then pulled his own phone from the side pocket of the bag. He frowned at the lock screen display. “Damn, I have to get going,” he said, shoving the phone back into the bag. “Thanks for showing me this place. Enjoy the book! Or don’t. Let me know what you think!” He laughed as he inched his way to the front door of the shop, too brightly to sound fully confident. 

Saïx remained still as Roxas pushed through the door and burst onto the sidewalk, barreling through a crowd of people and out of the sightline of the bookshop’s front windows. He looked down at his latest purchase, an impulse spurned by the lust for gossip, and chided himself for his impropriety while settling into one of the plush upholstered chairs arranged in a semicircle in the front corner of the store. If he was going to continue avoiding Axel for the day, he may as well work on fulfilling his promise to read his newest purchase in a neutral location. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The existing series: here. It’s… an interesting one, for sure.
> 
> I didn’t expect to have as much fun with the SaÏx & Roxas dynamic as I did! There’s something to be said for building a relationship from the ground up.
> 
> One more update before the end of the event! :D


	12. Unlikely Al(lies) Part 2

“Sorry I’m late!”

Riku looked down at a panting, sweaty Roxas, one hand braced against the frame of the front door. “Jesus, Roxas, did you run here? Where’s your car?”

Roxas stood doubled over with his hands on his knees, gasping for air. “At—home. I was—out exploring—on foot—”

“Fine, whatever, just get in here. You’re going to scare the neighbors.” Riku grabbed Roxas by the elbow and pulled him inside, one of Roxas’s feet tripping over the door sill as Riku yanked him over the threshold. He led Roxas down the front hallway into the living room, fighting Roxas’s labored breathing, and showed him to the living room couch. “Just take a seat, okay? Dinner’s almost ready.”

“Hey, Roxas!” Sora called, peering out from the open doorway between the living room and kitchen. A sauce-splattered apron hung around his neck. “It’ll be a few minutes. Make yourself at home!”

Roxas collapsed onto the couch, splaying his arms and legs in haphazard directions. The sound he made as he landed on the couch split the difference between a growl and a whimper. 

“Uh oh, sounds like trouble in—” Sora began to wag a wooden spoon in Roxas’s direction, but bolted back into the kitchen at the sound of something hissing. “Riku, can you handle it? I have to watch the stove.”

Riku opened his mouth to protest, about to point an index finger and explain that it was not his job to counsel his spouse’s cousin, but nixed the idea as he thought of the inherent hassle of fighting with Sora. He crouched forward and pushed aside Roxas’s legs to make room for himself on the couch. “You heard him. You get to tell me all your problems today.”

Roxas plopped his legs back into their original position, blocking Riku’s seat.

“Come on, Roxas. Quit being a baby.”

Roxas mumbled something inaudible and rolled onto his side, his knees drawn into his chest. His hands covered his face, Riku noticed, but his breathing had steadied considerably.

Riku perched himself on the open cushion and crossed his legs at the ankle, leaning on the arm of the couch as he turned to face Roxas. “That’s better. Now we can both have a seat. It’s symbolic for being equals in conversation.”

Roxas grunted from behind his hands.

Riku kicked with his crossed leg to prod the cushion under Roxas’s knees. “All right, come on, out with it. What’s the emergency this time? Did you accidentally flirt with someone again?”

Roxas shifted onto his back, his legs tenting and blocking his face from Riku’s line of sight. “How much has Sora told you?” he asked.

Riku hummed on an exhale. “Not much, really. Just that you were being a spitfire again. Breaking hearts and taking names.”

“I sincerely doubt that I broke anyone’s heart, Riku.”

Riku settled into the pile of decorative pillows shoved in the corner of the couch. “Oh, really? Enlighten me.”

Another half-growl escaped from Roxas, the sound gurgling deep in his throat. “I don’t really feel like getting into it, if it’s all the same to you.” 

“It’s not, so please go on. At least have the common decency to tell me about your day, like the polite houseguest we all know you aren’t,” Riku said.

If Riku’s past experiences interacting with Roxas were any indication, Roxas was currently scowling at him, his hands dragged down the side of his face. “Well, since you’re _interested,_ I’ll have you know that I hung out with someone new today. We went to a bookstore and I told him to read that one series with the really pretty superhumans—”

Following a sudden clanging of metal utensils from the kitchen, Sora popped into the open doorway. “Those are the ones with the medicine sex in them, right?” 

“Yeah, that series.” Roxas sighed, and it sounded like he was pinching the bridge of his nose. “I just… I don’t know. I’m questioning my life choices.”

“Aren’t you always?” Riku asked, after Sora returned to the kitchen to tend to the pots on the stove.

Roxas propped himself up on his elbows, glaring at Riku from over his tented knees. “Riku. Be serious.”

Riku repositioned himself to face Roxas, his back against the arm of the couch. “I am. Aren’t you always dealing with some existential crisis or another? Does it ever stop? Don’t you get tired?”

“I don’t need this. I don’t need this right now.” Roxas released his elbows and exhaled, falling supine. 

“It’s not what you need, but it’s probably what you deserve,” Riku replied, a wicked grin playing on his face. “Now tell me what’s up. I can’t help if I don’t know what the problem is.”

The conversation was cut short by the insistent tapping of a plastic utensil on the open edge of a metal pot. “Bring it over to the dining room, guys!” Sora called out, detaching himself from the kitchen enough to wave a wet ladle into the living room. “Food is done! Eat it now or I’ll get really sad, really fast!”

Riku snorted and got to his feet, kicking at Roxas’s ankles in the process. “The master chef has spoken. You can tell me the story over whatever Sora’s presenting as fine dining tonight.”

He waited until Roxas pulled his chair under the dining room table before pressing the issue. “Okay, Roxas, now you _have_ to tell me. What the actual fuck is going on here?”

On his way into the room after gathering silverware from the kitchen, Sora swatted at Riku with the damp ladle before placing it back into the pot of chicken noodle soup set on a placemat in the middle of the table. “Riku. Language.”

“Yes, I’m using language. Good catch.”

“You know what I mean,” Sora drawled, nudging Riku on the shoulder with a smile. “Come on. Keep it clean for family dinners, please.”

“Having your disaster cousin over for chicken noodle soup and spaghetti counts as a ‘family dinner?’ I feel like we could aim a little higher with the bar on that one.” Riku rested his arms on the table, scooting forward.

Sora scoffed playfully. “Well, excuse _you,_ good sir _._ Feel free to leave. Roxas and I will have an absolutely delightful evening without you.”

Riku rolled his eyes but sank into the cushion of his seat. “Alright, sorry. I’ll be good.”

Sora gave Riku a quick peck on the cheek before ladling out the soup into Riku’s and Roxas’s bowls, situated neatly on top of wide white plates arranged strategically around the table. “Thanks, hon. I know you know how not to be a jerk.”

“Do I? Sounds fake.”

Sora laughed and shook his head, pouring soup into his own bowl and taking a seat. “You’re ridiculous.”

Riku stifled a giggle with a closed fist against his mouth. He played the transgression as a cough before attempting to continue the questioning. “Anyway. Roxas. What goes? How does? Why is? All that good stuff.”

Roxas swirled around his soup, scraping his spoon against the bottom of the bowl. “It’s kind of a long story. Too long for a pleasant dinner with relatives and their antagonistic husbands.”

“Ooh, can I tell it?” Sora pleaded, waving his hands excitedly. “All the parts I know, at least?”

“Sure, whatever,” Roxas mumbled, still stirring his soup.

Sora gave an energetic nod before launching into the story. “Okay, so _first,_ Roxas gave his number to this random guy he met at a coffee shop, because _of course_ Roxas would do something like that,” he started, gesticulating at Riku with an open hand. “Then he goes on a date with the guy, and it doesn’t go great, so I told him, “Don’t talk to that guy anymore,” but he _does_ and they go on a second date—” 

“Is there a point in all of this?”

“Shh, yes,” Sora said, patting Riku on the shoulder. “Where was I? Oh, right, so there was a second date, where the guy _kisses_ Roxas and Roxas _freaks out_ and has an all-night panic attack and ends up at Target. That’s all I know, but there’s more, isn’t there? There’s gotta be more.” Sora shimmied in his seat, liable to burst out of his own skin.

Roxas tucked his spoon under the side of his bowl. “I guess? The guy, Axel, was working at Target when I went, and I’m pretty sure he hates me. His roommate works at the coffee shop down the street from the library, and we kind of hung out today? It’s weird.”

“How did you guys end up hanging out?” Sora slurped a spoonful of soup as he finished the question. “Does that mean you made a friend?”

Roxas bit the inside of his lip. “I saw him at a park and we started talking. He showed me this queer bookstore with a ton of genre fiction.”

“That’s your favorite kind!” Sora exclaimed, jabbing his spoon at Roxas.

Riku rested more of his weight on the table, pressing his forearms into the lace tablecloth. “Wait, isn’t all that a good thing? Why are you worried?”

“It’s too neat a fix. Something might be up with the two of them.” Roxas slumped against the back of his chair, the wood creaking under his weight.

“You think they’re conspiring against you?” Riku started to laugh, but cut himself off before Sora noticed the indiscretion. “Roxas, I highly doubt you’re _that_ important to a couple of basically-strangers. You can definitely relax.”

Roxas shook his head. “It’s not that. I’m kind of worried about Saïx—the roommate. He seems… tense. In a bad way.”

Sora tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at the ceiling, perplexed. “Is there a good way to be tense?” he asked. 

“I mean that he looks like he’s dealing with a lot, and I can’t shake the feeling that my thing with Axel had something to do with it.” Roxas massaged one temple with two fingers. “I feel like I’m wreaking havoc on a delicate ecosystem by trying to be social.”

Riku sipped at a spoonful of soup, then returned his spoon to his bowl. “So why keep doing it? If it’s that serious an issue, it’s probably better to leave well enough alone. Have you met any else since moving?”

With his arms dangling at his sides, Roxas dropped his head against the back of the chair. “Just some of my coworkers. They’re cool, but I _work_ with them. It’s different.”

“Maybe that’s where you should focus your energy, then. It sounds like these other two are more trouble than they’re worth,” Riku said, gathering noodles at the edge of his bowl.

“Riku! That’s so rude!” Sora exclaimed, mouth agape. “Don’t say that about people you’ve never met. You don’t know what they’re going through. You don’t know their _story._ ”

“What? I’m right.” Riku flicked his gaze to Roxas, then leveled at Sora. “No offense, but I feel like avoiding the drama is a higher priority than trying to get some random strangers Roxas meets to like him.”

Roxas began kneading the skin back and forth across his brow, the motion intensifying as he sagged in his chair. “I’m not trying to get them to like me. I’m trying to do damage control.”

“It’s not damage control if you’re making things worse. Honestly, Roxas, you need to learn when to fold and when to run—”

“ _Enough.”_ Sora shot a disapproving glare at Riku, then a sympathetic frown at Roxas. “That’s enough heavy conversation for tonight. I would like to have a nice family dinner, not listen to you two bicker all night. The rest of tonight will be filled with light banter and polite laughter, or I swear that I will _make_ it filled with light banter and polite laughter. Is that clear?” He swung his spoon across the space between Riku and Roxas, as if to gauge their willingness to cooperate.

Roxas closed his eyes and smiled from under his aura of pessimism. “Sure, no problem.”

Defeated, Riku grumbled an apology and offered to help bus the table in preparation for the main course.

The trio passed the evening as Sora demanded, with Riku providing barely-amusing anecdotes from his experiences working at a new accounting firm and Roxas listening intently, if somewhat distantly. Dinner ended as Sora served Neapolitan ice cream in scalloped glass dishes, complete with miniature silver spoons. “Are you staying a while, Roxas?” Sora asked in between ice cream bites. “We could play that one really complicated board game that Riku hates.”

Roxas chuckled at the suggestion, his first positive reaction of the evening. “Thanks, but I should probably get going. I’m working the early shift tomorrow.”

“Need a ride?” Riku nested his dessert spoon inside the glass dish with a small ‘clink.’ “It’d take you forever to walk from here, and it’ll definitely get dark before you get back.”

Sora knit his brows together. “Can you guys play nice for that long?”

Roxas acquiesced with his elbow propped on the table and his knuckles pressed into his jaw. “I guess. It beats walking, at least.”

“Sweet. Let’s go.” Riku stood from the table and hurried for the front door, without waiting for Roxas to follow.

He overheard Sora and Roxas chatter as he left the room: “Thanks for having me over, Sora. I really appreciate it,” Roxas said.

“Don’t mention it! It’s the least I can do.” A hesitation, like a silent plea, hitched in Sora’s speech. “Sorry that Riku’s so…”

“Himself? No worries, it’s no big deal.” Roxas laughed gently.

“Just play nice, okay? I want you both to get home in one piece.”

“Ha. No promises.”

* * *

Riku drove in silence, the road noise padding the truck cabin like the background static of poor radio reception. Roxas sat with his eyes fixed on the middle distance out of the side window, his posture rigid in the plush passenger seat.

Riku cleared his throat as he approached Roxas’s apartment complex, a network of two-story buildings arranged along winding self-contained streets. “Sorry about giving you a hard time tonight, by the way.”

Roxas continued to stare out of the window. “Don’t worry about it.”

A beat passed as Riku pulled into the parking lot in front of Roxas’s apartment. “You know I’ll help, right? With whatever you need.”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks.” He fiddled with the clasps of his messenger bag before slinging the bag’s strap over one shoulder. The truck door, stuck in its frame, popped open after Roxas gave it a kick in the bottom corner.

“Oh, and Roxas?”

Roxas turned, one foot halfway out of the truck cabin, to look at Riku. “Yeah?”

Riku shifted toward the open cabin door, bringing his voice down to a low whisper. “I know how to hide a body. Just so you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Roxas replied flatly. “You say that all the time.” 

“I mean it. Just let me know if you need any assistance from that particular skill set, okay?”

Roxas lowered himself onto the asphalt, his hand poised on the side of the truck’s door. “Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t think that’ll be necessary.” His voice remained flat.

Riku felt his goodwill begin to curdle inside him, souring at the perceived rejection. “Well, fine. Be like that. You try to do something nice for someone—”

“If and when I need that skill set, you will be the first person I call. Is that acceptable to you?” Roxas tapped his foot impatiently, gradually pushing the door closed.

He softened, relaxing into the seat behind the steering wheel. “Yeah, I guess that’ll work. As long as I’m the first person you call.”

Roxas gave a mock-salute. “Scout’s honor.”

“Great. I’m holding you to that.”

“Works for me.” Roxas slammed the cabin door shut, walked to his front door, and let himself into his apartment without looking back at Riku.

Riku waited until Roxas had entered his apartment before turning the key in his ignition and slowly rolling out of the apartment complex, counting the ways his attempts to get his point across had fallen on deaf ears with the bite of disappointment twinging in his mouth. Blunt explanations consistently shriveled when pitted against committed stubbornness, he knew, but he struggled to find a better method of persuasion. Tough love was exhausting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! We made it to the end of the KH Rogue Nebula! I want to thank everyone who's followed this fic since the event started--even if you hate-read, I still appreciate your time and attention. :)
> 
> After today, this fic is going on a short hiatus while I work on finalizing the final half of the story (it's drafted and needs edited/finalized). Think of it as a midseason break. xD I plan to wait until I'm able to do weekly updates to return to posting. I hope to see everyone again when posting restarts!


	13. Nagging Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, welcome back! It’s been a minute since the last update.
> 
> The world has changed, life has changed, and I’m back on the editing train. In light of recent developments in my personal life (hi, grad school) and extensive edits in this draft (hi, extra scenes and new chapters), I will be updating in chunks instead of continuously. Expect weekly updates for the next few chapters, followed by a break while I finalize the following few chapters, then a return to posting.
> 
> Many thanks to aliceslantern for beta reading and [Besin](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Besin/pseuds/Besin) for being a steadfast writing buddy!

The patter of rain against the window woke Axel, long before his clock radio had the chance to chime with its angry beeping and buzzing. He squirmed under the covers, pulling the blankets over his head and preemptively palming the ‘off’ button on the alarm he had set the night before out of habit. He tucked his arm back inside his blanket cocoon and lay still. A day off meant a day to stay in bed, under the circumstances.

Axel roused when the grumbling in his stomach outmatched the lethargy in his muscles. He got to his feet, wrapped a blanket around his shoulders for the journey, and dragged himself into the kitchen, yawning with every few steps. He swiped a banana from the bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter and sat in one of the barstools at the table, his eyes half-lidded.

He scanned the table for sticky notes, used dishes, open news magazines—anything that might suggest that Saïx had been home in the past 24 hours. He found a stray napkin by the far edge of the table, but nothing else.

Axel sighed and unpeeled the banana, nibbling as he watched storm clouds darken the sky in the kitchen window. He counted by memory: fourteen days since the fight with Saïx, fourteen days since he had talked to Saïx in any capacity, fourteen days since he had even _seen_ Saïx. The rain outside beat against the burgeoning emptiness in his chest.

Axel finished the banana and tossed its peel into the wastebasket. He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and slunk away from the table. He stared at the trash can for a moment, only to snap back into himself at a crash of thunder just outside the apartment. He glanced at the rain in the window, now more aggressive in its assault, and resolved to bury himself under blankets and pillows for the remainder of the day. No sense in staying awake if the weather matched his mood.

* * *

From inside his bedroom, Axel heard the front door slam shut before he opened his eyes. He grumbled as he pushed the blankets away from his body and sat up, massaging his brow with pointed fingers. Steady footsteps padded through the living room and down the hallway, past Axel’s closed door, and into Saïx’s bedroom.

Axel wrenched one eye open and stared at the floor as he considered his options. He could confront Saïx now, riding the post-nap irritation that fueled his sense of righteous anger. Or he could wait until later, when his anger felt less pointed. He could also go back to sleep and never deal with Saïx again.

He landed face-down on his mattress, his grunts of frustration muffled by the pillow against his face. He pressed further into the pillow, hoping the lack of oxygen would knock him unconscious quickly. Twenty minutes of exasperated waiting proved that Axel had no such luck.

He grimaced and flipped onto his back. The irritation demanded conflict, thirsted to spill metaphorical blood. It could not be sated with anything less.

Axel bolted from his spot on the bed and stomped up to Saïx’s door. He froze with one fist poised to knock, his reason catching up to his rage. Attacking Saïx would likely widen the schism between them, push Saïx farther away, and push Axel farther into isolation. Axel tightened his fists as he drew his hand away from Saïx’s door. He paced into the living room. That battle was best saved for a more intimate moment.

Riding on sheer momentum, Axel snatched his keys from the bowl in the foyer and flung the front door open, bursting from the apartment without a raincoat or umbrella despite the storming weather. He navigated the slick sidewalks on instinct, barreling through puddles and huddled groups of pedestrians with determined fury as rainwater splashed around his calves. By the time he found himself in the library’s lobby, his soaked clothes were stuck to his body at strange angles, and his hair was plastered against his neck as if gelled in place.

He squeezed some of the water from his hair before entering through the second set of double-doors into the library proper, summoning enough presence of mind to realize that looking disheveled would not help his case in the court of public opinion. With his head high and shoulders back, he walked through the doors and down the main aisle, straight to the central information desk.

As Axel approached the desk, he saw Roxas with his nose buried in his workspace, handwriting something on an official-looking form from behind a large computer monitor that obscured everything but his bowed head. Roxas’s coworker, a blonde woman whose expression grew stern when she noticed Axel’s entrance, straightened her posture. When he reached the information desk, Axel cleared his throat.

Roxas looked up from the form with a start. “Oh, uh, hello. How can I help you today?” he stammered.

Axel glanced at the blonde woman and summoned his best customer-service grin. He would need to be genteel in his approach with a witness so close by. “I’m looking for a book. I was hoping you could help me find it,” he said to Roxas.

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Roxas said, hastily tapping at his keyboard. “Do you remember what the title was?”

“Regrettably, I don’t.” 

Roxas inhaled and nodded, eyes fixed on his computer screen. He let out the breath. “Okay, no problem. Do you remember the author’s name? Or anything else about it?”

Axel leaned forward on the desk, bracing his hands against the lip of the desktop and daring Roxas to look him in the eye. “I don’t remember the author, unfortunately. I only remember what happened in it.”

“That’ll work.” Roxas typed something into his keyboard and clicked his mouse a few times. As he worked, the visible signs of his nerves receded, and professionalism drew around him like a cloak. “What was it about?”

“It was about—” Axel began, but stopped when he noticed Roxas’s attention lay on the computer screen. Seeing Roxas dutifully focus on his job, apparently with his own customer-service persona, piqued Axel’s curiosity and quieted his anger for a fleeting few seconds. He rocked forward over the lip of the desktop, craning his neck to inspect Roxas’s screen. “Hey, what’re you doing over there? I want to see.”

Roxas turned the screen so that Axel could see the display, pointing to one of many search bars on the displayed homepage with a mechanical pencil. “I’m just searching the library collection. We put in whatever information you have, names and titles and keywords and such, in the search bars, and check what comes up. Whether it matches what you’re looking for.”

Axel’s anger returned in full force at the sound of Roxas’s voice, its timbre a reminder of his mission. He tamped his anger down with a wider, faker smile. “Well, I gotta be honest—I didn’t finish the book, so I don’t know how it ends. It was due before I got to the end.”

Roxas pulled the computer screen back to its original position. He adjusted the keyboard, displaced by the moving monitor, on his desk. “I’ve been there, for sure. What was it about?”

“Just some guy.” Axel leveled his gaze at Roxas as he spoke. “He would go on dates but leave midway with weak excuses. At one point, he ditched his date in front of a movie theater. You know, regular stuff.”

Roxas studied his computer screen, moving his mouse in spiraling circles on its mousepad. “Huh, okay. Sounds interesting.”

“Eh, kind of. Mostly it was frustrating. The book, I mean,” Axel said, grimacing.

“So why try to look for it again? Hoping the second read-through is better than the first?” Roxas asked. 

Axel slid his elbows onto the top of the desk, letting his wrists dangle into Roxas’s workspace. “I want to know how it ends, that’s all.”

Roxas flinched, ever-so-slightly, and his professionalism faltered. “I see.” He clicked at something on the catalog display with the mouse and stood, forcing his swivel chair to roll back into the waist-high bookshelf behind the information desk. “In that case, follow me.”

Axel matched Roxas’s pace as he led him down one of the claustrophobic aisles of bookshelves clustered under the large “Nonfiction” sign hanging from the library ceiling. Axel caught himself from falling forward as Roxas stopped short at the very end of the aisle. Roxas crouched to reach a slim paperback on the bottom shelf.

Roxas flipped to the front of the book and ran one finger down the lines of text, scanning for something specific. Once he found what he was looking for, he held out the page for Axel to read. “This is the, ah, ‘plot twist’ in the novel, as it were.” He tapped at a bolded term written on the page, with a few lines of text nested underneath.

Axel took the book from Roxas and inspected the indicated passage: _aromantic. A lack of romantic attraction. People who are aromantic may…_ The words swam in an ocean of ink and paper as Axel tried to read them. “What am I looking at?” he asked.

“The, uh, narrative explanation of character motivation. In the novel.” Roxas crossed his arms and scuffed one foot on the carpeted floor. His head hung from his shoulders as though his neck had given way to the weight of a guilty conscience. “Axel, I’m so sorry.”

Axel skimmed the bolded term and its definition several times, his mind racing as he struggled to piece together the gestalt from its parts. He recognized the term, understood what it meant, even though the details of the definition on the page eluded him. “So… aro.”

“Yeah.”

Axel leafed through the book to find the term ‘gay’ in the list of definitions, then turned the book to Roxas. He pointed at the term, slouching forward to coax Roxas’s eyes from the floor. “This… this is part of it too, right? I mean, it would have to be, wouldn’t it?” 

Roxas shuffled backward, unfolded himself in small steps to stand upright. His cheeks flushed. “The... Well, I mean, the narrative implies it, but I don’t think it’s ever explicitly stated in the text.”

Axel flipped to the term ‘asexual,’ the movements of his hands fueled by the pins and needles beginning to poke at the inside of his chest. “Is this it?” he asked, his words escaping in puncturing bursts.

Roxas glanced at the page, then to the side. “I don’t think that was explicitly stated, either.” He closed his eyes as his breath left him, heavy and distraught. “I wish I could give you definitive answers, but I can’t.”

“No?” Axel closed the book, holding his place with his index finger. He waved the book in front of Roxas’s eyes, making the paper wobble around its binding. “Tell me this, then: why? Why say yes? Why go through with it? Why put the _other person_ ”—he cleared his throat as his voice snagged— “through it?”

Roxas placed two fingers against Axel’s forearm and gently pushed him away. The book’s pages fluttered as Axel’s waving stopped. “In terms of the novel narrative,” he said, “I can’t say. In general, I can tell you that most people don’t appreciate having paperbacks shoved into their faces.”

Axel tore his arm from Roxas’s touch, stepping away and gripping the book at his side. “You can’t say.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Why the _fuck_ not?” Axel’s expression darkened, his teeth gritting.

Roxas rolled his eyes. “I’m at work right now. As an on-duty librarian, I couldn’t tell you how to interpret a text in good conscience.”

“Oh? What is thatsupposed to mean, exactly?” The pins and needles sunk deeper into Axel’s chest, transforming themselves from numbing pinpricks to syringes of adrenaline.

Roxas gestured at the book in Axel’s hands. “Read it for yourself.” He maneuvered around Axel, who stood fuming in the middle of the aisle, and began walking back toward the information desk. “I need to get back to my post. Feel free to check out that book if you’re as curious as you claim to be.”

Axel glowered at Roxas as he disappeared from view, hidden by shelves and book displays. He peered at the paperback in his hand, the sweat from his grip sticking to the plastic overlaid on its cover. The summary blurb on its back cover identified the book as a primer on queer identity, complete with a glossary of terms and brief overviews of common intrapersonal issues in each chapter. Axel groaned inwardly. More runaround. 

Though his pride chafed at the indignity, Axel found himself taking the book to the library’s checkout counter and asking the clerk to sign it out in his name. If there were answers, he resigned himself to finding them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is slated to be posted next Monday. See you then!


	14. Speaking Through the Static

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, sorry about the delay! Some thunderstorms knocked out my power for a few days at the beginning of the week last week, so I opted to wait to post this chapter. Enjoy the calm before the (metaphorical) storm in this fic! :)

“What… was all that about?” Naminé eyed Axel as he left the checkout counter with a book held tightly at his side. He snatched a plastic bag from the complimentary pile at the end of the counter, stuffed the book inside, and skulked out of the main library doors.

Roxas dropped himself into his swivel chair behind the information desk, his weight pushing the chair backward on its wheels. “Nothing much. Just a return patron.” He turned to face his computer monitor. Razor-edged moths nicked at the inside of his chest.

“It didn’t look like ‘nothing much.’ Should I be worried?”

“Probably not? It’s probably fine. Probably.” Roxas forced back the panic in his voice with an unconvincing cough. He rocked backward in his chair and spun around for an added touch of nonchalance.

Naminé shook her head. “If you’re being harassed, you can tell me. We have a whole process for taking care of things like that. We can even ban people from the library if we have to. Don’t feel like—”

“There’s no harassment.” Crossing his legs at the knee, Roxas shifted against the scratchy upholstery of his chair and let his chin drop to his chest. He gave the wastebasket under the desk a once-over before studying the miniscule geometric pattern on the carpet. “I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of that patron again.”

Dread, creeping up from the pit of his stomach to the roof of his mouth, soured Roxas’s workday resolve and threatened to eat away at his professional facade. His knuckles whitened as he gripped at the black plastic armrests of his chair, his entire body shaking despite his sudden inability to breathe or move.

A gentle hand on his knee jostled free his breathing, and Roxas repaid the gesture with long, harried wheezes in quick succession. Once he had collected himself, Roxas looked to Naminé, surprised to find her bending down and crawling under the desk until she was nearly hidden behind the wires running from the top of the desk to the floor. She looked back up at Roxas, her bangs falling into her eyes. “Do you need to talk about it?”

Roxas blinked in confusion. “What?”

Naminé patted the space on the floor next to her. “No better place for a heart-to-heart,” she said, covering her mouth as she giggled. “It feels kind of conspiratorial, which is part of its charm.”

Roxas’s eyes darted around the library floor—though he did not see anyone lurking around the information desk, a wayward patron could walk up to the librarians on duty at any moment. “But don’t we—won’t we—”

“Oh, just get _down_ here.” Naminé took Roxas by the wrist and pulled him onto the floor with a delicate tug. “We won’t get in trouble.”

“What makes you so sure?” Roxas asked, his limbs jutting out at uncomfortable angles as he attempted to cross his legs on the floor without kicking Naminé. He bumped his head on the underside of the desktop when he tried to sit up straight.

Naminé braced one hand on the floor, moving over to accommodate Roxas. “Oh, trust me. Even Marluxia respects the sanctity of the Secret Desk Confessional.” She stretched out her legs, tapping her red ballet flats together after she finished repositioning. “What comes to light in here stays in here.”

“Can’t other people hear us?” His question came out strong and steady, without pretense. “This isn’t exactly a soundproof booth.”

Naminé waved one hand in dismissal. “Anyone who overhears two grown adults pouring their hearts out while sitting on the floor and _doesn’t_ automatically give them space is not someone who’s worth worrying about. Now.” She tented her hands, tapping the tips of her fingers together one pair at a time, and her smile darkened. “Let’s put the Secret Desk Confessional to good use.”

Roxas peered at Naminé from the side. He shrank away from her after a moment. “This is a new side of you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Gossip Hound Naminé before.”

“We don’t have to use it at full power. Sometimes just being a secluded place to vent is enough.” Naminé scooted further under the desk, coming dangerously close to Roxas. 

On instinct, Roxas recoiled, slamming his head on the underside of the desk. A curse escaped from under his breath. “That sounds a little more palatable,” he said, rubbing the side of his head. “A little less blood-oathy.”

Naminé shifted her weight and stretched out her legs, the rough carpet leaving red marks on her ankles. “Oh, Roxas, around here we don’t make our oaths in _blood._ That’s unsanitary.”

Roxas’s hand migrated from the side of his head to his forehead. “Oh. That’s minimally reassuring.”

“Okay, okay, kidding aside,” Naminé said, planting one hand firmly on Roxas’s knee, “what happened back there? Who was that guy? Does Xigbar have to teach him a lesson? We need the details.”

Mystified, Roxas glanced at Naminé’s hand, then pulled his knee away from her touch and into his own chest. “No lessons needed around here. It’s not that deep.”

Naminé laced her fingers together and laid them in her lap. “Roxas. I promise that you can tell me what’s going on. Believe it or not, I’m pretty good at keeping secrets.”

Roxas felt the inside of his mouth dry up, his tongue becoming fuzzy and lethargic. _I just came out to someone and it didn’t go well._ “We’ve met before. That guy and me. We’ve, ah, ‘hung out’ before,” he said, using air-quotes with two fingers.

Naminé leaned forward, her curiosity shining through dilated pupils. “And?”

 _And I feel like I’m about to cave in on myself._ “He… didn’t like the way things turned out.”

Leaning closer, staring intently. “Yes, and?”

Roxas folded more completely into himself, crossing his arms on top of his tented knees. _And if I had just minded my own business in the first place, or just fucking told him what was up with me at the get-go, this wouldn’t have happened._ “He came in to ask about it. I explained it.”

“Explained what?” Naminé’s unblinking gaze remained trained on Roxas, undeterred.

He sighed. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” _I kind of deserve it, though._

Naminé cocked her head to the side. “Really? It doesn’t look like ‘nothing.’”

“I guess you’ll have to trust me on this one.” _I deserve it, and a lot worse._

Naminé leaned back, her hands braced behind her on the carpet. She tilted her head and gave Roxas a gentle nudge with her elbow. “You know, Roxas, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

Roxas answered with silence and stillness, his body and tongue held rigid. Inside him, the cuts from the razor-edged moths in his stomach started seeping, filling his chest cavity with oozing, stinging bile.

After giving Roxas a final pat on the shoulder, Naminé got to her feet, ducking around the lip of the desk to avoid hitting her head. “In that case, I won’t make you talk. Just know that the Secret Desk Confessional is always available, if and when you’re ready.”

Roxas snuck back into his swivel chair when Naminé went on break a few minutes later. He kept quiet for the remainder of his shift, save for answering the odd question from a library patron, if only to keep the bile from spilling out of his mouth. 


	15. A Signal in the Fog

From his spot by the seawall, Axel could see gray lake waves crash on the rock-speckled beach, less than one hundred feet in front of him but several meters below. The water had already encroached on a good chunk of hospitable sand. Soon, he mused, whitecaps would buffet against the concrete of the seawall and send sprays of dirty-looking lake water onto the boardwalk. 

Axel fidgeted in his seat. The wiry picnic table, with its attached bench seats, large open umbrella, and unobstructed beach view, had offered reprieve from the rain and his spiralling thoughts when he had first arrived at the lakefront. Hours later, the lattice pattern on the bench bit into his legs and left diamond-shaped marks on his hands when he pressed them into the seat.

The wind picked up, rustling the edges of the plastic bag folded over itself on the table. Axel sighed, unfolded the bag, and took out the book inside. He flipped it open to the page defining ‘asexual,’ then to the page defining ‘aromantic,’ then back to the ‘asexual’ page. The words under the bolded terms swam in front of his eyes, just as they had the last few times he had read them. Axel traced the shape of each letter as he attempted to puzzle through the words. If he stared at them long enough, maybe they would make sense again.

A chipper voice ruined his concentration. “Oh, hello again!” 

Axel looked up from the ‘asexual’ page with a start. On the other side of the picnic table, the blonde woman from the library stood holding a small white umbrella over one shoulder. The yellow hearts ringing the bottom edge of the umbrella matched her rain slicker and rain boots. “Awful weather today, isn’t it?” she asked, leaning forward.

Axel shrugged and glanced back at his book. Somehow, the words on the page had rearranged themselves into a new order. His efforts to read them would have to start over. “Weather isn’t great, I guess.”

"Right? It’s been gloomy all day. I had hoped that the rain would stop by the time my shift ended, but I suppose it wasn’t meant to be.” She turned toward the beach, her umbrella twirling slowly in her hands. “At least the waves are pretty, even in weather like this.”

Axel hummed in halfhearted agreement. Several letter e’s had turned themselves upside-down on the ‘asexual’ page. His brow creased as he tried to right them in his mind.

“It’s why I come here sometimes,” she continued, her umbrella still twirling in Axel’s peripheral vision. “Watching the water is oddly relaxing, after a rough day.”

“Sure. Makes sense.” He opened to the ‘aromantic’ page, hoping for better luck.

The woman tilted her head back and adjusted her umbrella, unblocking the sky from her view. “Look at the clouds, though! They’re so dark. It looks like the rain might start again any minute.” She pointed at the book in Axel’s hands. “You may want to put that away. The library charges for water-damaged books.”

“Yeah, I know. I know how libraries work,” he grumbled, frustrated that the a’s on the ‘aromantic’ page flipped themselves over like the e’s on the ‘asexual’ page. 

The woman cleared her throat like a stern kindergarten teacher, and Axel jumped to attention. “Oh. Right. Sorry.” He shoved the book inside its plastic bag and wrapped the open end around the book twice over. “It’s fine. I wasn’t really reading, anyway.”

She smiled at him gracefully, her shoulders dipping and her umbrella shifting to frame her face in the rainy gloom. She stepped forward and extended one hand. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr…?”

Axel shook her hand and immediately blanched. Her grip far outmatched his own. “It’s just Axel, ma’am. No ‘Mr.’ required.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Axel. My name is Naminé.” She released the handshake after several solid, finger-crushing pulses. She gestured at the open bench seat across from Axel. “May I join you?”

Axel pulled his hand under the picnic table and massaged the soreness in his fingers with the other. His eyes fell to the ground. “If you want. Like you said, it’s going to get rainy out here in a little bit.”

Naminé alighted onto the empty bench, the fabric of her slicker squeaking as she folded her legs into the space under the picnic table. “Oh, a little rain won’t hurt. I don’t mind. Actually, I’m glad I chose to come out here today. I got to properly meet you.”

“You wanted to meet me?” 

“Yes, of course,” she said, straightening in her seat. “I make it a point to be on a first-name basis with all of our more colorful patrons.” 

Axel winced. _Colorful._ What a polite euphemism. “I… should probably apologize for that. I promise I’m not usually that creepy.”

Naminé giggled, one hand moving to cover her mouth. “That’s good to hear, at least,” she said. 

Sympathetic laughter, fueled by embarrassment, bubbled up from deep in Axel’s chest. “I… I mean it, though. I promise I’m not…” He brushed a piece of his hair, still limp and damp from the rain but no longer soaked, behind one ear. “I’m sorry if I acted weird earlier today. I haven’t been...” 

“Feeling like yourself?” Naminé offered.

“More like I’ve been too much like myself lately,” he replied dryly. Single, heavy drops of rain began to beat against the top of the picnic table’s umbrella. Axel rested his chin in the palm of his hand and slumped forward on the table.” _Way_ too much like myself.”

“Too much like yourself? What do you mean?” Naminé asked. Her questions held no trace of accusation, and her expression showed no malice.

More raindrops pattered on the umbrella, announcing their arrival in fits and starts. Axel closed his eyes and listened. “I come on too strong. People don’t like that. And they don’t want anything to do with me afterwards.” The words escaped before he realized what he was doing—baring his soul to a complete stranger, one with ties to Roxas. Shame seared across his face. “Forget it. It’s stupid.”

Naminé shifted in her seat, her movements sending reverberations through the connected table seats. “It doesn’t sound stupid. Especially if it’s bothering you.”

“You’d be surprised.” Axel popped one eye open to see Naminé leaning over the top of the picnic table, the pattern of the wiring creasing into her elbows and forearms. “Besides, even if it isn’t stupid, I doubt it’s all that interesting.”

“Try me.” She nodded and reached one hand across the table, an invitation for reassurance. “If it helps, I’m legally obligated to keep patron information confidential. Librarians have an ethics code.”

“Even when you’re off the clock?”

She nodded again. “Of course. Anything you tell me will be held in absolute confidence.”

Axel stared at Naminé’s outstretched hand. Maybe talking to someone other than Saïx, for once, would help. He slid his free hand toward Naminé’s, planting it next to hers on the table. “Long story short, there are currently two people avoiding me for the same reason.”

Naminé splayed her fingers palm-up on the table.“What happened?” 

“Well, the first guy…” Axel swallowed the knot forming in his throat and took Naminé’s hand. He took care not to grip too tightly, lest he reveal the degree to which his life was falling apart. “We hung out a couple times. Things ended… badly.” His eyes flicked to the book of definitions, wrapped in its plastic bag. “I think I’m still mad about it.”

Naminé squeezed his hand, more gently than she had shaken it earlier. “What about the second person?” she asked, a prompt rather than a demand.

The rain fell in sheets, its descent a roar from outside the protection of the table’s umbrella. “We had a fight. He won’t talk to me about it.” Tears pooled in Axel’s eyes, like the puddles widening on the boardwalk. In seconds, they flowed freely down his face in unabashed streaks. “Sometimes, I’m angry at him because he’s avoiding me over something stupid. But when I’m not angry, I just feel _bad_. Empty. Tired. I hate it.”

Naminé let Axel’s words hang in the air, giving them time to breathe, before she responded. “It sounds like you’re in a tough position.”

“Yeah, and like. We’re best friends,” Axel continued through hiccuping breaths. “We’ve been friends since we were kids, and we live together, and we—” He stopped himself before finishing: _we love each other._ “We’re really close.”

Something somber and understanding crept into Naminé’s expression as she listened. “I’m sorry. I know it can be hard to fight with a friend,” she said.

Axel swiped away one of the drying tears on his cheek. His breath steadied as his thoughts coalesced, more clearly than they had in weeks. “I just. I don’t want to be mad at him anymore. I want to hang out, and watch movies, and everything else, like we always do. ‘Cuz like, that other guy, the first one? Fuck him. He’s not important. The second guy, though, he’s part of my life. A big part. And I want that part of my life back.” Axel furrowed his brow, shaken by the unbidden clarity. “Naminé, I fucked up. What do I do? How do I fix this?”

“Well, it’s hard for me to say, since I don’t know the full story,” Naminé said, as she opened her hand and drew it back into her lap. “What do _you_ think? What would help you the most?”

Axel fell into a pout on his propped-up knuckles. “I guess I should talk to him, huh.”

Naminé giggled. “Yes, talking is usually good.”

“But, like. What if I mess it up? What if I say the wrong thing and ruin everything forever?” Axel’s free hand found its way into his hair, splitting apart water-clumped strands from scalp to tip. Several strands dislodged between his fingers. He flicked them to the ground. “I tried that with the first guy. It didn’t work out.”

“But you said the first guy was someone you had only met recently. This other person has been your friend for years. I’d bet he’s probably as eager to make up as you are. Friendships are resilient like that.” The light in her eyes dimmed just enough for Axel to notice, and her gaze dropped soon after. She smoothed her hair over one shoulder, her hands running over its length several times. “At least, that’s what I think.”

A twinge struck in Axel’s chest. Naminé must have some baggage, too, for her to react like that to her own train of thought. His conscience urged him to help, to return the favor of her kindness. “Do you… want to talk about it?” he ventured.

The gloom shadowing Naminé’s expression evaporated at Axel’s question. She laughed, waving one hand side-to-side dismissively. “Thank you, but no. You’ve got a lot on your plate.” She leaned back to peer at the sky beyond the picnic table umbrella. The rain had slowed to a trickle, and the sun began to filter through a thin spot in the blanket of clouds. “It looks like it’s time for me to go. I should try to get home before the rain starts again.”

Naminé stood and opened her personal umbrella. She gave its handle a spin before setting it on her shoulder. “Just be honest with him,” she said, when Axel started to visibly sulk. “Speak from the heart. If everything you say is genuine, then you’ll never say too much.” She bounded away with hopping steps, sidestepping the deepest puddles but powering through the smaller ones. “Good luck, Axel!” she called back to him.

Naminé disappeared around a bend in the road, and Axel returned his attention to the lakeshore. The water, still gray and dirty-looking, had devoured the last vestiges of the beach during their conversation. Waves now broke over the seawall, sprays of freshwater mist intermingling with the rain puddles on the sidewalk. Axel collected his book, bundled in its plastic bag, and set off for home.

_Speak from the heart,_ Naminé had told him. _Be genuine._ Axel decided, in that moment, to commit himself to following her advice. It couldn’t possibly make things any worse, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter marks where the substantial edits and rewrites of the first draft begin. Thank you for your patience while I try to get everything to make sense behind the scenes!


	16. Return to Center

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, welcome back! A quick heads-up and disclaimer: I use “queer” as an inclusive term, in this particular fic and in general. I’m not sure if it’s come up before in this fic, but I felt I should clarify just in case!

“ _Hold still, sweetheart,” he said, his breath falling heavily across the side of Cloud’s cheek. “This won’t hurt, I promise.”_

_A primal shudder rocked Cloud’s body, sending his back into a high arch as he whimpered under the touch. “Oh, Sephiroth—”_

Saïx yelped and tossed the book aside, sending it tumbling to the ground below his bed.

He had handled the first sex scene of the narrative, read in the comforting public space of the queer bookstore, with little more than a twitch of an eye. The second sex scene of the narrative, snuck during a break at the coffee shop, he had blustered through with an antiseptic detachment. This, the seventh sex scene of the first ten chapters of the book, read in the privacy of his own bedroom, officially shattered what was left of his patience.

Saïx shut his eyes and counted out his breaths, bidding his stomach to calm and the queasiness to dissipate. The corners of his sheets tangled in his fists and between his fingers. He relaxed his grip when the tremors in his arms subsided.

From inside his bedroom, Saïx heard the front door open and close, followed by a string of unintelligible mutterings that likely belonged to Axel. Saïx glanced at the digital clock on his nightstand—Axel had left earlier that day, stomping out into the rain and off to who-knew-where. He listened with a clenched jaw as Axel’s footsteps paced around the kitchen, into the living room, and down the hallway. They stopped short at Saïx’s closed door.

A soft knock followed. “Saïx? Are you in there?” Axel sounded tired, smaller than usual.

Saïx’s lip curled as it trembled. “Who wants to know?” he spat in compensation.

“Can we talk? I— _we_ —really need to talk.”

Saïx’s locked muscles relaxed as his gaze swept over the ephemera of his bedroom: his sheets mussed and bunched in odd places, his work apron hung by its neck strap on his closet doorknob, his novel abandoned on his floor. Taking in the disarray wore at his remaining resolve. He sighed to himself and padded to the door.

Axel stood in the doorway, his hair hanging around his shoulders in dried clumps and his clothes splattered with damp rain-spots. The anger and avoidance and aggression on which Saïx had relied for the past few weeks liquefied and drained away when Axel smiled at him from the other side of the threshold. He fought the instinct to smile back, and scowled instead.

Axel’s entire body relaxed as Saïx opened the door, as if years of pent-up frustration had dropped from his limbs all at once. “Hey,” he breathed. “It’s been a while.”

“Can I help you?” Saïx crossed his arms, his eyes narrowing. Something inside of him wanted to drop the pretense, reach out, and bring Axel close, wanted to wrap his arms around Axel’s waist and bury his face into Axel’s half-wet shirt. 

Axel’s small grin widened, his teeth flashing against the pallor of isolation still present at its edges. He let out a brief, thin laugh. “It’s nice to see you, too.”

Saïx rolled his eyes for the performance. “Get to the point, Axel. I’ve got some important reading to do.”

Axel’s grin sobered as he dropped himself against the door frame. “I’ve been thinking. About us. About everything.” He scuffed one foot against the floor divider. “Can I come in?”

Saïx felt the muscles in his neck tighten, the joints in his upper body stiffening. His sense of self-preservation warred with the nebulous longing building up inside him. He stepped backward, despite himself, just enough to allow Axel into the room.

Up close, Axel looked unkempt, shrunken and bedraggled without the support of his usual bravado. His hands worried up and down the length of his arms. They eventually settled in his pockets, and he took a breath. “The past two weeks have been the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through,” he said, his head hanging at a slight angle. “I hate not seeing you. I hate not talking to you. I hate that we’re fighting. I don’t want to fight anymore.”

Watching Axel’s confidence sputter sent a knife into Saïx’s heart. He found himself suddenly fascinated with a crack in the wall to Axel’s left, if only to avoid directly witnessing Axel’s imminent disintegration. Saïx reminded himself of the circumstances and the stakes, of the reality of the situation. “You’re not serious,” he countered.

“Yeah, I am.” One of Axel’s hands reached forward, open in entreaty. “Saïx—”

“Then make me an offer,” Saïx huffed, hiding behind his affronted facade. “If you’re really _that_ serious about it, that is.”

Axel’s hand slipped back into his pocket, and his eyes rose to meet Saïx’s. “The chasing stops,” he said, “right here, right now. And on top of that, I’ll make you pancakes every Saturday, even when you have opening shifts. And I’ll make you dinner every night, even on days when you close. And I’ll do all the dishes for the rest of forever. And—”

“And _what,_ exactly?” Saïx’s voice strained from the effort of keeping the urge to immediately fold and cry into Axel’s shoulder at bay.

Axel paused, thoughtful, and took a step forward. “And I’ll love you for the rest of my life, dumbass.”

“No, you won’t.” 

“Yes, I will.” Axel slipped his fingers into Saïx’s hand, curling between the knuckles and pulling Saïx forward. “Saïx, I—”

“No, you _won’t,_ ” Saïx insisted, tearing his hand away. He knew he was pouting, knew he was acting childishly, and inwardly swore at himself for being transparent. He straightened his back and steeled himself, balling his fists at his sides. “We went over this. It won’t work. We’re better off if we don’t pursue this further.”

Axel shook his head. “We’re not better off if we’re miserable.” He rested one hand lightly on Saïx’s shoulder. When Saïx turned to inspect the gesture, Axel swept his other hand along his cheek, the tips of his fingers burying themselves in Saïx’s hair. “I love you, for real. It doesn’t matter what we do or don’t do. I will always love you.”

Heat rose around Saïx’s face and burned at the tips of his ears, fiercely enough to singe away any hope of maintaining the performative anger. He fought to keep a straight face while his skin tingled at Axel’s touch. He felt he could burst into rage or laughter or tears, or a combination of all three, in a matter of seconds. He let out an involuntary gasp, followed by a deliberate sigh. “Don’t play with me, Axel. I might actually believe you.”

“Do you?” Axel asked, wrapping his arms around Saïx’s neck. “Believe me, I mean?”

Defeated, Saix rested his forehead against Axel’s. The contact made his internal organs turn to warm jelly.“I want to,” he admitted. “I really want to.”

Axel shifted closer, closing the gap between their bodies. “Does… this mean the feeling’s mutual?” he asked, speaking dangerously close to Saïx’s lips.

Saïx gnawed at his bottom lip as he searched for the right words, the best phrasing to explain himself. When his search was unsuccessful, he resolved to speak plainly. “This is fast, Axel. This is reallyfast.” Nerves churned in his stomach with a renewed vigor. “We need to start smaller. I can’t… _We_ can’t jump headlong like this.”

Axel nodded and released his arms. “Okay.” He shuffled backward, giving Saïx a wide berth. His hands migrated back into his pockets, and his eyes fell to the floor. “Smaller, as in...” 

Courage surged in Saïx’s heart. “As in, does that new video game of yours have a two-player mode?” He rubbed the back of his neck and stepped toward Axel, holding out his free hand. “Or, we could start by sitting next to each other in the same room for a bit. It _has_ been a good while, after all.”

Axel stared blankly at the hand offered to him, seemingly lost in thought for a few elongated seconds. Right before Saïx might have retracted the offer, he slipped his fingers into the open space of Saïx’s palm. Bits of his bravado returned as he squeezed Saïx’s hand.“Yeah, sure,” he said, leading Saïx into the hallway toward the living room, “but I will crush you. Unlike you, I understand how game controllers work.”

Saïx returned the bluster. “Don’t get cocky. For all you know, I’ve spent the past two weeks training to defeat you in console-based combat.”

“All the training in the world can’t save you, but it’s cute that you think that it would.”

Several hours, two snack breaks, and multiple player-vs-player rounds in several different video games proved Axel correct: Saïx lost nearly every match, even after Axel adjusted the difficulty level to be easier for Saïx, and after Axel suggested switching to a game that used fewer controls and more random events in two-player fights. Saïx took each loss in stride. “I’m playing to play, not to win,” he stated resolutely.

Axel beamed. Another two-player battle came to a close, with his player character posing victoriously over the prone corpse of Saïx’s character. “Whatever you have to tell yourself. Sounds like something a loser would say, to me.”

Saïx scoffed, pressing ‘confirm’ to return to the game’s multiplayer submenu. “You’re assuming I don’t have any ulterior motives in playing games with you.”

“Ulterior motives?” Axel put his controller onto the coffee table and turned to Saïx, one fist tucked under his chin. “Enlighten me, dear Saïx.”

“Why would I do that?” Saïx asked, placing his controller next to Axel’s. “Seems counterintuitive. If I had an ulterior motive, which I will neither confirm nor deny, I certainly wouldn’t _tell_ you about it.”

“Psh. Asshole.”

Saïx shifted on the couch, his side braced against one armrest while his legs tucked under each other. He noticed Axel watching him move in his peripheral vision, and a niggling thread of confusion awakened in the back of his mind. “Speaking of ulterior motives…” 

Axel placed a hand on his chest with a mock-gasp. “Saïx! I bared to you my very _soul!_ Are you suggesting that I might have impure intentions?”

“What made you want to talk today?” Saïx asked flatly, leveling his gaze at Axel and reapplying a neutral expression.

Axel turned himself to face Saïx, tenting his knees. He sat against the couch’s opposite armrest. “I already told you. I hated the fighting. I didn’t want to fight anymore.”

“And you came to that conclusion all on your own?” Saïx’s stern expression held firm. “You’re not really one for apologizing or taking responsibility, if memory serves.”

Axel’s eyes darted away, flicking toward the looping menu animations on the television screen. “I may have done some soul-searching. Librarians were involved.”

Saïx cracked a grin. “That sounds vaguely ominous.”

“It’s the truth. I’m speaking from the heart.” Axel thumped a fist to his chest and blew a raspberry to illustrate.

Saïx reclined onto the armrest, collapsing into his corner of the couch with his arms folded and his ankles crossed. “If you say so. Heightened specificity _never_ inspires suspicion in _anyone_.” 

Axel fidgeted, extending his legs across the couch. His feet brushed against Saïx’s calves, and he smirked when he caught Saïx looking. “Hey, if I want your opinion on how suspicious I sound, I’ll ask.” He mumbled something else under his breath, too low for Saïx to hear.

“Hm? What was that last part?” Saïx shifted again, leaning in Axel’s direction.

One arm draped across Axel’s eyes as he slid into a supine position, his height claiming the majority of the space on the couch. “I said, I’m glad we’re cool again.”

Saïx glared at Axel’s feet, now pressed firmly against his knees. “Okay, me too, but do you have to be so gross about it? Your disgusting feet are _touching_ me.” He tried to scoot away, but found no refuge in what was left of the couch’s cushion-space.

“Yes, I do. That’s one-hundred-percent Axel, baby. Accept no imitations.” He raised one leg to wiggle his toes in Saïx’s face, laughing. “Aren’t you just the luckiest guy in the world?”

Saïx batted away Axel’s foot with the back of his hand. “Yeah, I must be.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week’s chapter is the last update for this particular chunk of updates. It’s also one of my favorite chapters of the whole fic. :) See you then!


	17. Written/Unwritten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter comes with art, courtesy of the wonderful @Elledriitch on Twitter! The artist's twitter is currently locked, but I got permission to embed the image in the chapter itself. 
> 
> This is the last update before I go on hiatus again, but it's also one of my favorite updates for the whole fic. I think it's a good place to pause for the moment. :)

“So he came to your _work?_ ” Sora leaned into the camera, and his nose engulfed the video window on Roxas’s phone screen.

“Yeah, he came in and asked for answers.” Roxas sat crumpled on his couch, holding his phone a few inches from his face. Though emptied packing boxes and scattered junk mail had taken over most of the flat surfaces in Roxas’s apartment, his couch had thankfully remained relatively clean. At the very least, he told himself, he needed to maintain appearances on video calls. 

Sora repositioned his phone, his entire face and part of the design of his graphic t-shirt now visible on the screen. “Answers? Like coming-out answers?”

Roxas’s eyebrows drew together. He nodded, looking away.

“Did you… y’know, tell him?”

“Not in so many words.” Roxas kneaded his forehead between his thumb and forefinger. “I gave him a book and told him to check it out if he wanted answers.”

Sora gasped. “Roxas, you _didn’t._ ”

Roxas let himself drop onto his side and land on couch cushions with a slight bounce. In the bottom corner of the video call screen, he saw one side of his face squished against the fabric. “In my defense, I was at work. I wasn’t about to go into my life story with all my coworkers and who-knows-who-else skulking around in the library.”

Bits of static emanated from Sora’s end of the call. He shifted on his own couch. “Well, I gotta tell you, it sounds like you were trying to blow him off.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I am.” Roxas’s hand migrated to the upholstery on his couch and idly picked at a worn section in the corner of one cushion. “My life would be significantly less stressful if this whole thing just, like, _went away,_ y’know? That would be nice.”

Sora snorted in response. “Like you’d let anything like this ‘just go away.’ You had that chance at the beginning of this whole mess, and you didn’t take it.”

Roxas’s spirit fell, taking his instinct to defend himself with it. “Yeah, I know.”

“But you kept going, knowing full well that you’d end up right where you are, just like every other time this has happened.”

“I know.”

Sora pointed a finger at Roxas. “You know what I’m about to say next, right?”

Roxas sighed. “Fine. Go ahead. Go for it.”

“It goes something like… hm, how does it go?” Sora asked, tapping his fingers on his chin as though trilling on piano keys. “Roxas, do you remember how it goes?”

Roxas grumbled under his breath. “If I say it, it’s reversed.”

“Humor me.” Sora stuck his tongue out, his eyes bright with self-satisfaction.

“Ugh, fine,” Roxas groaned. _“You told me so.”_

“Damn straight I did!” Sora exclaimed, pumping his fist into the air. The image blurred on the screen as Sora’s phone shook around the momentum of his triumph. “Called it from the beginning! Jeez, Roxas, this would be harder if you weren’t so eager to get caught up in drama.”

Roxas glared at Sora. “Alright, alright, you win. Take your bragging rights and go.”

Sora held two fingers next to his cheek in a peace sign. “Don’t mind if I do!” he chirped, grinning broadly. After a few seconds and a small giggle, the elation in his expression dimmed. “For real, though, are you okay? You look a little ragged around the edges.”

Roxas’s gaze dropped from his phone to a pile of direct-mail grocery store advertisements on the floor. “Yeah, I’ll be okay. I think I’m going to take tonight to chill and forget that other people exist. Read a book. Hex my enemies. You know, the usual.”

“Wow, partying hard over there,” Sora said, shaking his head and laughing gently. “Just don’t go overboard, okay? I would really miss your panicked phone calls if you partied yourself into a coma or whatever.”

Roxas pushed his bangs, drooped from their usual swooping cowlicks, away from his face. “Excellent choice of words there, Sora. Very reassuring.”

Sora huffed. “Jeez, Roxas, why so rude? You try to say something nice to a guy—”

“Okay, _fine._ Thank you for your concern.” Roxas pieced the remainder of the errant hair out of his eyes. “We’ll talk later?”

“Sure. Later!” Sora waved and hung up. Roxas’s contact list replaced his image on the screen.

Roxas let his phone fall to the couch, his lungs and heart deflating with the release of his grip. Sora was right: Roxas had practically walked into the drama, aware of what he was doing but powerless to stop himself. For a moment, he considered withdrawing from the social sphere altogether, taking up residence in a cave outside the city limits, and offering directions to travelers in exchange for snacks and supplies.

That idea evaporated as Roxas’s phone buzzed on the couch. The message notification displayed an unsaved number atop the curt message. _What is the meaning of this book?_

Roxas unlocked his phone and typed out a response. _who is this? what book?_

Seconds later, his phone lit up again. _It’s Saïx. Answer the question, book man._

_oh hey sakes, what’s up? which book? as a book man, i know of many books._ Roxas fought the urge to cackle aloud, albeit dryly, as he pressed the ‘send’ button.

An instantaneous reply: _This is no time for joking, Roxas._

_so i take it you didn’t like it?_

_This book. It vexes me._ A text bubble with a wiggling ellipsis popped onto the screen as Saïx formulated a second message. _I do not think that I care for it much._

_no? care to elaborate?_ Roxas’s focus drifted to his bookshelf, where his copy of the book in question sat between a horror anthology and a fantasy-comic omnibus. None of the books on that shelf had been touched since Roxas had unpacked his personal library collection several weeks prior.

A full minute passed before Saïx sent his reply, the text-bubbled ellipsis returning. _How trustworthy are you?_

Roxas considered his response. _i mean, i think i'm pretty trustworthy, but i could have an inflated ego, or i could be lying. what kind of answer are you expecting?_

Another text bubble appeared on the screen, disappeared, and reappeared. _Explaining my feelings about this book would involve making confessions that I’d rather not make in any form that might leave a paper trail._

_you're not trying to make me an accessory to a murder or anything, right?_ Roxas rapped his fingers along the back of his phone, humming notes of acquiescence to himself. _you don’t have to tell me anything, you know. we're effectively strangers._

Saïx replied after a few seconds. _Roxas, I’m hurt. I showed you the secret queer bookstore, out of the goodness of my own heart, and you have the nerve to call us strangers._

_it was a secret?_ Roxas asked, his hummed melody cut short.

_It was. It isn’t anymore._

Roxas stared at the text message, unsure of how to reply. Was Saïx kidding, or was he actually offended? Was he both at once? Roxas worried at the inside of his cheek and scrolled through the conversation for context clues.

Saïx sent another text a few minutes later. _Sorry, that sounded harsh. I do want to talk about the book, but I’m friendlier in person. Could we meet at the bookstore sometime?_

_i'm free tomorrow night._ Roxas’s fingers typed and sent the message before his sense of ethics could protest. A pit formed in his stomach as he realized what he was doing: talking, and planning, and entrenching himself when he should be putting himself at a distance. 

Saïx sent the bookstore’s address in another text. _They’re having a book release tomorrow, so it may be crowded._

Roxas suppressed a grimace, swallowed against the sour taste creeping up the back of his throat. _it should be fine. i don’t think anyone’s really all that interested in eavesdropping on a conversation about an old queer novel._

_Understood. See you at 6pm?_

He felt sick. _sure, no problem,_ he wrote. Thumbs-up emoji. Send.

Roxas waited for the message to read as ‘sent’ in the tiny text under the chat balloon, then promptly tossed his phone across the room. He now had plans with Saïx, Axel’s friend. Saïx, Axel’s friend, whom Roxas had approached randomly in a park, had given a book recommendation andhis phone number, and had just entertained at length in text-conversation. 

He held his face in his hands and let out a throaty, jagged whine. Sora was right. Sora was always right about things like this.

Roxas dragged his hands down his face, stretching the skin around his eyes and mouth until the impulse to berate himself retreated. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it would be okay. Roxas had enjoyed hanging out with Saïx at the bookstore the first time, after all. Maybe Saïx was capable of keeping his relationships separate, and maybe Roxas would be able to make and keep a friend, regardless of any relation to his ill-fated dates.

Roxas pushed himself to his feet and retrieved his phone from the far corner of the living room, where it had landed next to a meticulously stacked pile of hardcover library books. Stressing about personal and moral failures could wait until the morning, or the next evening, or the end of time. For now, some mindless scrolling would pass the time.

—

The front sidewalk was already buzzing with eager patrons when Roxas arrived at the bookstore a few minutes after 6 o’clock. Customers held copies of the same blue hardcover tightly to their chests or at their sides, as if the books might disappear into thin air. Roxas made a mental note to check the title of the book to pass on to the Collections department of the library.

He spotted Saïx standing along one of the far walls of the store, staring into the distance with his hands in his pockets and surrounded by bookstore patrons sporting flannel shirts and beanie caps, all with blue hardcovers in their hands. In spite of the sudden urge to bolt out of the shop and never look back, Roxas snaked through the crowd, fit himself into the space next to Saïx, and mirrored his hands-in-pocket stance. “Wow, you weren’t kidding. It looks like this is the place to be tonight,” he said, gawking at the turnout.

Saïx cast a glance down at Roxas. “Yes. I think the author’s a bit of a blockbuster for this particular audience. A big draw at the independent bookshop.”

“No shit,” Roxas replied. The size of the crowd, in all its indie-scene glory, made a compelling argument for orchestrating a daring escape. “Are you sure you want to talk here? There’s a lot more people than I expected.” 

“I suspect that we’ll be just fine.” Saïx regarded Roxas over the bridge of his nose, then flicked his eyes at the mass of people beginning to file toward the meet-and-greet table set up at the back of the store. “Like you mentioned before, nothing either of us has to say is going to interest anyone else here. They’ve got their own stories to attend to, and they’re likely more concerned with themselves than they are with the goings-on of anyone else.”

Roxas inhaled sharply. “Wow, harsh. I thought you said you were friendlier in person.”

“I am. ‘Friendlier in person’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘friendly in general.’” With a barely-perceptible smirk, Saïx tilted his head toward the front of the store, indicating a pair of empty chairs in the bookstore’s reading area. “Care to claim those before someone else does?”

Roxas hiked the strap of his messenger bag higher onto his shoulder before making a beeline for the open seating, out of a need to separate from the crowd as much as a need to fulfill a social obligation. “For the record,” he called to Saïx over his shoulder, “that was kind of a shitty thing to say. Not everyone’s that self-centered.”

“You don’t think so?” Saïx folded into the chair closer to the store’s front window and crossed one leg over the other at the knee, prim and assured. “I didn’t peg you as the sensitive type. At least, not where other people are concerned.”

Reluctantly, Roxas sunk into the other chair and placed his bag on the floor, its front flap folded backward to expose the various books and notebooks perennially stored therein. “What can I say? I contain multitudes.”

“Multitudes of emotions? My condolences.”

“As much as I’d love to psychoanalyze myself with you, I seem to recall that we’re here to discuss something,” Roxas said, reaching into his bag and pulling out his personal copy of the book he had recommended to Saïx. He held it up to Saïx’s eye level, brandishing its yellowed pages and worn paperback covers with a wiggling wrist motion. 

Saïx’s shoulders lowered and one hand clasped onto his crossed knee. “I didn’t realize we were supposed to bring our books to class today. I’ve come unprepared.”

“No worries. This one’s the class copy.” Roxas shook the book again, the pages shuffling only just audibly over the commotion of the bookstore crowd. The sound abated the top layer of his nerves. “I figured we might need to fact-check some stuff if the discussion got too heated.”

Saïx sunk further into his chair. “I’m… not sure how far we’ll get in any discussion of the book. I couldn’t finish it.”

“For sure. It’s bad, right?” Roxas jumped forward to the edge of his seat, his previous misgivings about the night cast aside. “It’s _so_ bad!I think it took me three entire months to read the whole thing because I kept needing to take breaks because it just _sucked_ that much, oh my God. The absolute _worst._ ” He picked up the book and handed it to Saïx. “How far did you get? Show me. I gotta know how long you stuck out the shitshow.”

Saïx cringed as he accepted the book. “I’ll… try. I don’t know how much more of the, ahem, ‘shitshow,’ I can handle.” He opened the book in the middle and flipped through pages one by one, scanning the text by running his index finger down each printed line. His momentum stalled when he stopped on a page with a comment scribbled in blue pen in one of the top margins, seemingly transfixed by the annotation.“You writein your books?” Saïx asked, pointing to the scribbles and frowning.

Roxas craned his neck over the arm of his chair to investigate. “Oh, in this one I did. I had a lot of unexpected reactions to this book that needed processing.”

“Was one of them the notion that desecrating the written word with your own scrawl is ever acceptable? Because it’s not. It’s very much not.” Saïx shook his head as he continued to scan through the book. “Honestly, Roxas, I expect better from you.”

“Oh?” Roxas’s jaw hinged open, his reply prefaced with a high-pitched squeak. “Um, how _dare_ you? I’ll have you know that—”

“Ah, Roxas? Care to explain?”

Roxas turned to find Saïx holding the book open to one particularly written-upon page, blue ink almost completely obscuring the printed text underneath. The most legible of the annotations ran from margin to margin in large capital letters: _IS THIS A REAL THING? WHY???_

Leaning forward in his chair, Roxas flinched as he read the notes written at the top of the page. “Oh. That. I forgot about that.” 

“What exactly is… ‘that?’” Saïx tilted his head, his expression inscrutable, and pointed at the handwritten message with one slender finger. “How much teenage angst did you graffiti onto this poor paper?”

“Quite a bit, if you can believe it.” Roxas gestured open-palmed at the book in Saïx’s hands. His stomach plunged to the floor but he kept talking, out of sync with the rest of his body and entirely too fast to be nonchalant. “If you want, you can check out all the little annotations I put in there. There’s bound to be a few gems in between all the half-baked self-righteousness.”

Saïx stared at the written note for a moment, then closed the book. “I think that would be… graceless of me. I’m sure that you would willingly share anything that I’d need to know.” He handed the novel back to Roxas, carefully avoiding Roxas’s eyes in the exchange.

Without a word, Roxas accepted the book from Saïx. He flipped back to the incriminating comment, trailing a bent finger along the page as he parsed the written text from his past additions. “Oh, I remember this part. Sephiroth has to go off by himself for a while and Cloud just kind of sits around for a few chapters? Because he’s supposedly so upset that his ‘one true love’ or whatever isn’t there with him right that second.”

Saïx sat back in his seat, angling himself to face Roxas. “You didn’t like that part?” he asked, cadence steady. 

“I... couldn’t relate,” Roxas said, his mouth beginning to run while his better judgement walked. “I couldn’t understand why one person leaving would make Cloud depressed when there was literally everything else in the book happening around him. I don’t get it.” He coughed into one shoulder, a vain effort to wrangle himself into a calmer state. “It went along with some things I was going through in real life. Insult to injury and all that.”

“Is it a touchy subject?”

“Yes.” 

A lull emerged in the space left in the conversation. Roxas refused to elaborate. Saïx waited, unblinking. 

Finally, Roxas assented. “Do you... want to hear about it?” he asked.

“Only if you want to talk about it.”

“I guess I should. You already read the book. It’s not like I can keep hiding it.” Roxas’s gaze fell to the book in his hands. “Just don’t laugh, okay?”

The harsher angles of Saïx’s face softened. “Of course. You have my word.”

Roxas let out a breath, gripping the sides of the paperback novel until his knuckles turned white. He uncrossed his legs and planted both of his feet firmly on the ground. “This is kind of stupid, but in high school, I would watch everyone around me pair themselves off into these shitty little teenage flings and break up with each other and reshuffle into new pairs and just—” 

Roxas caught himself, half of a frog in his throat. He pounded on his chest with a closed fist. “It’s, um, hard to talk about.”

“Were you often on the outside looking in?”

Roxas focused on the street through the shop’s front windows, rubbing the armrests of his chair. His hands shook. From its resting place somewhere deep and forgotten inside him, fermented shame bubbled out of its locked cell and into Roxas’s chest. “You could say that,” he managed to say.

“Do you still feel that way?” 

A finely-aged mixture of grief, remorse, and heartache followed the shame pooling at the bottom of Roxas’s rib cage. He brought one hand across his face when he realized his cheeks were sticky and his eyes were stinging. “Jeez, Saïx. I know we didn’t, like, _just_ meet, but that doesn’t give you permission to give me emotions in a fucking bookstore.”

Saïx shifted in his seat, the fabric of the upholstery scraping audibly against his clothes. His fingers wriggled around each other as the rest of his body grew preternaturally still, like worms on a tombstone. “Then I suppose I have a confession to make, in the interest of fairness.”

“Oh yeah? Shoot.” Roxas asked, as a consecutive line of teardrops escaped and dropped onto the fabric of his pants. He sniffled once, indelicately. “It can’t be worse than whatever my psyche’s deciding to do right now.”

Saïx stowed his fidgeting hands under his thighs. “I only read the first ten chapters of the book. The reason for that is because there were too many sexual acts depicted in the text for me to stomach. If I may borrow your phrasing: _I_ don’t relate to the urge to engage in partnered fornication.”

Suspicion made Roxas’s nose wrinkle. “Meaning what, exactly?”

“I’m asexual, Roxas. And sex-repulsed, as it turns out.” Saïx’s statement came out uneven at first, hurried in some places and slowed in others, but steadied as he went.

The suspicion receded, transmuting itself into eaten crow. Roxas bowed his head and half-wished for a quick, merciful end. “Oh. Ah. Sorry. I, uh, didn’t mean to make you come out and say it like that.”

“What, asexual?” Saïx relaxed slightly, with his elbows moving to rest on the arms of his chair. “It’s not a dirty word, Roxas, and I’m not in the closet. Besides, you asked. What else would I have said?”

“I… No, I should still apologize. You can’t just _ask_ people stuff like that. It’s personal.” Roxas slumped back into the cushion of his seat. “It’s rude to ask people questions that you’re not comfortable answering about yourself. I don’t know if you noticed or not, but I’m not great at stuff like this. I… can’t always talk about my deal. Most of the time, actually. It’s a whole thing.”

“Why? Are you embarrassed?” Saïx asked.

Roxas choked out a dry laugh. “That’s a great question. Wish I had an answer.”

“How _do_ you feel about it, then?” Saïx hunched forward as he looked at Roxas.

Roxas considered the question for a moment. The silence between him and Saïx intensified, eclipsing the din of the bookstore behind them and the ringing in his ears. It broke at the sound of Roxas letting out the breath he was holding. “I don’t know. I wish I knew. I wish there was a report in a file somewhere that I could take out from a file cabinet and read it and know, in no uncertain terms, what the fuck is going on.”

Straightening to sit upright, Saïx uncrossed his legs. “Can I ask a potentially incendiary question?”

“Uh, sure?” Roxas rubbed away tear residue from under one eye with the heel of his hand. “I guess. Go ahead.”

“Why date?” 

Roxas swiped under his other eye. “Like, in general? Or specifically Axel?”

“Whichever answer you have,” Saïx replied, his tone gentle.

Another silence, punctuated by the beeping of the bookstore’s cash registers and the pointed debates of unruly patrons. The ambient noise buzzed in Roxas’s mind. “I don’t know. I’d just moved here, I’d just performed a shitty acoustic cover for a bunch of strangers, and this guy comes up to talk, and I’m kind of glad that people aren’t laughing, and this guy seems okay so why not give him my number? And then he’s texting, and I’m texting, and then we’re meeting up, and I realize what I’m doing, and then I rip things apart and try to put them together but it doesn’t _work_ and by the time I realize I should stop it’s already a war zone and—”

“Hey, Roxas?”

Roxas startled, wrenching his entire body away from the hand placed on his forearm. “What?” he demanded.

Saïx pulled his hand back, clasping it around his opposite elbow and rubbing against the fabric of his shirt with his thumb. “It’s okay, you know.”

The tension knotting in Roxas’s back loosened as he settled back into a comfortable sitting position. “...yeah. Maybe.”

“Really. It’s okay.” Saïx’s arm twitched as though it meant to reach out to Roxas, but it stayed in place, held tightly against his body. He sighed and looked around at the bookstore behind them. The crowd had converged on the table at the back of the store, and none of the patrons gave a second glance to the sitting area at the front. “It looks like our secrets are safe for the moment. The author reading must be starting.”

Roxas pushed himself to his feet. “Which is my cue to slip away unnoticed and nurse my dignity back to health. This has been an enlightening evening,” he said, brushing imaginary dust off of his pants. “Enjoy your night.”

Saïx followed Roxas out of the lounge area and toward the shop’s front door. “Before you go, would you mind helping me with something?” he asked.

Roxas burst onto the sidewalk with Saïx directly behind him, accompanied by the jingling of the bells tacked to the inside of the shop’s door. “That depends. Can I get out of it?”

“No, I don’t think I can let you,” Saïx chuckled, a reflex that sounded as though it had laid in disuse for a significant amount of time. His footsteps took on a hopping quality as he maneuvered in front of Roxas and steered them both down a perpendicular side street. “Follow me. Try to keep up.”

“Hey, wait! Not cool!” Roxas gritted his teeth. He hurried after Saïx, fighting to keep up with Saïx’s long stride and to keep his own seething aggravation at bay as it grew with every door and crosswalk sign passed. When Saïx came to a halt in front of a convenience store on a dilapidated block, it took all of Roxas’s self-control to restrain himself from punching Saïx in the jaw. “There better be a damn good reason we’re in front of a shit-tier 7-Eleven, Saïx.”

Saïx waved away Roxas’s comment and swung open the building’s glass front door with one connected movement. The wind chimes hanging on the hook attached to the inside of the door tittered with the motion. “Just wait here. I’ll be out in a few minutes,” he said.

Several minutes later, Saïx left the store with two plastic bags linked on one arm. He reached into one of the bags as he walked over to Roxas, who had tucked himself against a corner of the building with one foot tapping on the sidewalk. “Here,” he said, holding out a small wrapped package to Roxas. “You’ll want to eat this before it melts.”

Roxas accepted the package, a thin white sheet of plastic wrapped around something topheavy, sealed with crimping at both ends. From inside the packaging, he could feel the chill of ice cream and the outline of a popsicle stick protruding from one side. He peered at the offering, confused, until he saw Saïx retrieve and open an identical package from one bag. 

“Axel introduced me to these,” Saïx explained, pulling a rectangular light blue popsicle from the plastic packaging. “They have the strangest flavor palette.”

Roxas eyed the package skeptically. “What’s the occasion?” he asked.

Saïx shrugged and began to amble down the street, in the direction of the bookstore. His feet scraped across the pavement in unhurried intervals. “No occasion. You just looked like you could use some ice cream, with the way you were breaking down back there.”

Roxas’s lip curled as he moved to keep pace with Saïx, walking twice as fast to cover the same amount of ground. “I wasn’t breaking down. Trust me, you’d know if I was. Also, I don’t need your pity."

“Of course not.” Saïx bit into his popsicle, taking a chunk out of one of its corners. “In that case, consider it a thank-you for the book recommendation.”

“Why are you thanking me?” Roxas asked, his brow scrunching to match his lip. “You hated the book. Hell, _I_ hated the book. It’s not a good book.”

Saïx took another bite out of his popsicle and slowed himself to a crawl, until Roxas’s pace fell in time with his own. “You need to lighten up. Not everything’s quid-pro-quo.”

“Tch. You sound like my cousin,” Roxas mumbled. He pulled open the packaging of his popsicle as he walked. The plastic tore down the middle, like a vivisection incision.

“I think your cousin might be onto something.”

“Sure, whatever.” Roxas unsheathed his popsicle from its casing. He tested its taste with the tip of his tongue, then nibbled at one corner. For a frozen dessert, it was surprisingly salty.

The pair continued in silence, following Saïx’s lead along well-lit boulevards and through shrouded alleys, to a side street with parking meters lining the road. Saïx stopped at a meter next to a modest black car with tinted windows and a crescent moon decal in the top-right corner of the rear windshield. “This is me,” he said, pointing at the car with a now-bare popsicle stick.

Roxas stopped next to the car, his own popsicle stick tossed in a trash can a few yards away. “Nice window sticker.”

“Thank you. I think it’s rather whimsical.” The sound of keys jingling echoed off the somber brick of the surrounding buildings. Saïx pulled a blue keyring from his pocket and separated his car key from the others. “Do you need a ride?”

“No, I drove. My car’s on the next street over.” Roxas nodded in the direction of the main road.

“Suit yourself. Feel free to text me anytime, then,” he said, walking around to his driver’s seat door without looking at Roxas. “I promise I can keep a secret.”

“Sure thing, man,” Roxas responded, over the sound of the door slamming shut and the engine revving. Roxas watched Saïx pull out of the parking space and drive away, with a two-finger wave visible through the rear window. 

Roxas shoved his hands into his pockets and walked back to his car, parked closer to the bookstore on the main road. He pulled out his phone once he was safely locked and buckled into the front seat and opened his messaging app. _you might regret that carte blanche text permission,_ he typed into the conversation thread with Saïx. _no take-backs, though._ Send.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again, everyone, for sticking with this project. I’ll be on hiatus again for more editing/rewriting for now, but I think the final product will be worth the extra time and effort. In the meantime, stay safe and take care of yourselves!


End file.
